In Extremis Veritas
by Zathara001
Summary: Soulmates AU. This is an expansion of chapter 68 of ozhawk's "Soulmate Shorts," wherein Pepper Potts shouldn't be surprised to find that her soulmate is a century-old, former sniper turned brainwashed assassin - nor that they would exchange words in the middle of a firefight. Really, it's just another day in the life...
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an expansion of Chapter 68 ("Is It Just Me?") of the Soulmate Shorts posted by Ozhawk under that title on both and AO3. Ozhawk's original chapter is woven into this story, not a stand-alone chapter.

It should be obvious, but neither Ozhawk nor Zathara owns any part of the MCU or the characters depicted therein - Disney/Marvel does; we're just playing in their sandbox for a little while.

CONTINUITY NOTE: Takes place after Iron Man 3 and CA:TWS, but before AOU.

The asset had come to the Smithsonian every day for a week, each day dressed in different clothes stolen from a clothesline or a store, or once from a car the owner had forgotten to lock. Not that it would have taken much effort to disable the alarm, but discretion was the asset's first priority, unless otherwise ordered.

Only he wasn't the asset anymore, or not just the asset, not if the face looking down from a glass wall at the Smithsonian were any guide. The face matched his own, and the name on the wall…

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, it read. It called him a fallen comrade.

 _"Bucky?"_

 _"Who the hell is Bucky?"_

That brief exchange on the bridge made sense now, the asset thought. The man who'd spoken first was Steve Rogers, and if this exhibit could be believed, they'd been friends.

No, not just the exhibit. There were bits and pieces of his own memories that gave the same impression.

 _"I knew him."_

His handlers had brushed that off - even then, he knew it was a brush-off - but now, staring face to face with a memorial to the man he had been, the asset - no, _Bucky_ \- knew the truth.

His Hydra handlers had ordered him to kill his best friend.

Anger surged through him at the thought, and at the memory of how close the asset had come to succeeding. He hadn't succeeded, though, and in the end, Bucky had pulled Steve Rogers from the Potomac.

He read the text again, though he'd had it memorized since the first time he'd seen it. _Rogers and his team destroyed Hydra bases_ , it said. Bucky smiled.

He could do that.

#

Maybe it was the result of being around the latest and greatest technological innovations so much, but Pepper Potts preferred low-tech options for certain things - like reports and memoranda. Those she wanted on paper, the easier to read and make notes on.

A lot of the Stark Industries department heads grumbled about that preference, so different from Tony Stark's electronic obsession, but Pepper had made it clear that if they wanted their work to come to her attention, it had better be on paper as well as electronic.

Paper also never went dark or beeped at her for being inactive when she set it aside to think, and thinking was something Pepper had been doing a lot of lately, ever since the Extremis virus had nearly killed her.

Tony fixed it like he said he would - she was no longer a danger to herself or others - but that didn't mean Pepper was the same woman she'd been before Extremis.

The question that kept her setting aside paperwork to think was both simple and profound: who would she be now?

#

There were no more Hydra bases left, Bucky thought. At least, there were no more bases left that he knew about. He was under no illusions that anyone in Hydra, least of all a conscripted, brainwashed super-soldier, knew the locations of every base in the world. Still, he'd done what he could to end that threat, even if it was decades in the doing.

Now it was done, and Bucky had to decide what to do next.

He pondered that question on the flight back from Estonia and the final base he'd destroyed. In the end, there was only one choice he could make.

Bucky disembarked at LaGuardia and hailed a cab.

"Avengers Tower," he told the cabbie, a burly black man with a gold pinky ring on his right hand.

"This ain't a tour bus," the cabbie shot back.

"I'm not taking a tour," Bucky countered. "I want to go to Avengers Tower."

"You an' half the damn city."

"Half the damn city isn't offering a hundred-dollar tip if you do." Might as well put some of the money he'd confiscated from Hydra to good use.

"A hundred?" the cabbie repeated, his skeptical expression easily visible in the rear-view mirror. Bucky just held up the bill so he could see it.

The cabbie shrugged one shoulder and pulled into traffic. "Y'ain't gettin' in, but I'll drop ya as close as I can."

Bucky nodded and sat back to watch the city, so familiar and yet so strange, out the window.

#

"Close" turned out to be three blocks west of the Tower, thanks to a throng of sight-seeing tourists and tour buses. Bucky paid the cabbie, including the hundred for a tip, and slipped out of the cab into the street.

He hadn't worn a hoodie today, or any other disguise - _stupid, Barnes_ , he chided himself - but nobody seemed to pay him any attention as he wove his way through the crowd. All the instincts he'd ever had, especially those honed by the war and his involuntary service to Hydra, screamed at him that the crowd wasn't safe, too easy to conceal a threat or an attack with so many people around, but he forced himself to a calm he didn't feel and walked straight up to the Tower doors.

 _Lousy security_ , he thought as the doors opened for him and he crossed from the warm New York afternoon into the almost-too-chilly lobby.

Then the alarms went off, and Bucky cursed himself for a fool. He'd been so focused on getting to Steve, talking to him, trying to put his life back together, that he'd forgotten all his training. Now the Avengers were viewing him as a threat.

He did the only thing he could do. He dropped his duffel bag and took two large steps away from it, holding his hands above his head. It was the least threatening Bucky knew how to be, and he stood waiting for whatever might happen next.

What happened next was that an elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal a man in a purple-checked button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up past his elbows. The man came toward him, and Bucky thought he'd never seen a more unassuming person in his life.

He wasn't going to underestimate the newcomer. He wasn't going to show any intimidation, either.

"You greet all your guests with an alarm and a lockdown?" Bucky asked.

"Only the uninvited ones who tried to kill a friend of mine not that long ago."

Bucky winced at the reminder of what he'd almost done to Steve. "That wasn't me."

The other man raised an eyebrow and Bucky shrugged as best he could with his hands still in the air.

"My body," he acknowledged, "but not my choice. And at the end, I pulled him out of the Potomac."

"Who are you, then?" the other man asked.

"James Buchanan Barnes. If you're a friend of Steve's, you can call me Bucky."

"What's in the bag, Bucky?"

"A couple of changes of clothes, an armored vest, a few thousand in cash."

"Weapons?"

"Three knives, one semi-auto."

"That's all?"

"That's all," Bucky confirmed. "Except maybe a bottle of water."

"Why are you here?"

"To talk to Steve. He here?"

"He's out looking for you."

"Figures," Bucky muttered. "Don't suppose you'd let me wait for him?"

"Maybe," the other man said. "You can put your hands down."

Bucky complied. "You're not afraid of me."

The other man chuckled. "No, I'm not."

Bucky grunted. If the other man knew who he was, he should be afraid of him. Hell, sometimes Bucky was afraid of himself. "So what now?"

"Now we talk a bit," the other man said. "I'll ask you some questions, and if I like the answers, I'll call Steve and tell him you're here."

"And if you don't like the answers?" Bucky couldn't help asking. Was the other man actually going to threaten him?

"Then you won't like me very much."

"Seems only fair I know your name, either way."

"Sorry," the other man said. "Bruce Banner."

 _Oh._ Bucky just offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you."

#

Sometimes, Pepper missed being based in Los Angeles - especially during the snowy New York winters, she considered moving Stark Industries' headquarters back to California. But Tony's life was here in New York now, complete with the Avengers, and while Tony and SI weren't the inseparable entity they once had been, it felt wrong to split them up just for her comfort, even if many of SI's manufacturing facilities were still in California and she made more cross-country trips than she cared to think about as a result.

Today she returned from a site visit to find the Tower on lockdown. Her ID allowed her to access JARVIS and order him to override the lockdown so she could get inside the Tower. Once inside, Happy Hogan met her, blocking her path to the elevators.

"Sorry, ma'am," Happy said, looking as apologetic as only he could. "No elevators are going up. The Tower's been evacuated."

"Why?" Pepper demanded.

"Unexpected visitor," Happy told her.

An unexpected visitor who resulted in the Tower being locked down? Pepper couldn't help letting out a sigh. "Not Loki again?"

"Not Loki. The Winter Soldier."

Pepper knew who that was, of course - after the SHIELD information dump, everyone knew, or had the opportunity to know. "What's going on?"

"Dr. Banner's talking to him," Happy told her. "He's the only Avenger here today."

Pepper considered that information, and the fact that the Tower wasn't shaking, nor could she hear sounds of a fight, or anything else that might indicate Bruce had felt it necessary to let the Hulk out.

"When did Sergeant Barnes arrive?"

"Uhm -" Happy glanced at his wrist where a watch might have rested.

"JARVIS?" Pepper prompted.

"Sergeant Barnes arrived at one forty-eight this afternoon," JARVIS told her.

A glance at her watch told Pepper it was now two thirty-six. Barnes had been here almost an hour, and the Tower was still standing. She chose to take that as a positive omen.

"Where are they now?" she asked.

"Dr. Banner's office," JARVIS replied.

Pepper considered for only a moment, then she was striding toward the elevators. "I'm going up there. JARVIS, security override code _deadman's curve_."

"Ms. Potts," Happy began, but Pepper was already in the elevator JARVIS had opened for her.

#

When the elevator opened onto the laboratory floor, Pepper was struck by the silence. Usually when she came here, the place was abuzz with activity. Often Tony and Bruce would be arguing some point of physics while at the same time directing the staff with whatever projects might be underway at the time.

Right now, though, the lab was empty, only the hum of machinery suggesting anyone had ever been here. Pepper shook off the eerie feeling that gripped her and turned down the hallway toward Bruce's office.

Bruce met her when she arrived, closing the door behind him before she could get a look inside at their visitor.

"Are you all right?" Pepper asked.

"Fine. Obviously," he added with a self-deprecating grin.

"Is _he_ all right?"

Bruce's grin faded. "As much as anyone can be all right after what he's gone through."

"But he's himself? He's really Bucky Barnes?"

"Mostly. There are gaps in his memory, but he knows who he is and what he was made to do. I'm not a therapist, but he seems to be doing all right."

"If he needs anything," Pepper began.

Bruce cut her off with a smile. "We'll ask."

Then he disappeared back into his office, leaving Pepper standing in the hallway feeling awkward for the first time in a very long time.


	2. Chapter 2

Barnes was like the Tower's resident ghost, Pepper decided a few days later. He'd just turned up one day in the lobby, as if from nowhere. Since then, he'd been a shadowy presence, spoken of in whispers amongst the staff.

Even Pepper had never seen him, much less spoken to him. Tony – and JARVIS – were very protective of her and cautious of Barnes, despite Bruce's report, so the two of them had been living in the same building for a month before they even came face to face, and then Barnes' huge sapphire eyes just widened and he was gone before she could even say _Hello_.

#

The asset didn't stop until he got to his rooms and secured the door behind him. Once the door was secured, Bucky focused on calming his breathing and unclenching his left, mechanical hand.

"Do you require medical attention, Sergeant? Your pulse and respiration are dangerously elevated."

He'd been at the Tower long enough that he didn't flinch at the disembodied voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time - at least not much. On occasion, the asset would emerge, expecting an order from his superiors.

Today, he was enough Bucky that he just shook his head.

"No, I don't need a doctor," he told JARVIS between breaths. "Who was that dame, anyway?"

"I doubt she would appreciate being referred to as a 'dame,' Sergeant," JARVIS informed him. "She is Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries."

Bucky knew the name, of course, had heard all of the Avengers talk about her at some point or another, though he hadn't met Pepper Potts yet. "I didn't realize she was so beautiful," he murmured.

JARVIS, thankfully, kept silent at that. Bucky assumed the AI was satisfied now that his vitals had returned to near normal.

They should never have surged the way they had, though, and if it happened again, if the asset emerged fully, that could be dangerous for everyone, especially Ms. Potts. Bucky would have to do something about that involuntary reaction.

Fortunately, he knew people who might be able to help.

#

The second time Pepper saw Bucky Barnes, he came into the kitchen in the middle of the night when she had her mouth full. She'd just got back from Japan on SI business that evening. A short nap later, she was jet-lagged and starving. So she headed to the common kitchen – no point looking in her own fridge, she'd been away for a week – and found some leftover kung pao chicken. It looked reasonably fresh, so she zapped it in the microwave and was sitting at the counter shoveling it in when Barnes slipped into the room, obviously heading toward the fridge himself. He stopped dead when he saw her.

They stared at each other for a moment – Pepper's cheeks bulging like a hamster – and then he was gone again.

#

Once again, Bucky found himself with his back pressed against the door to his room, counting breaths and focusing on slowing his racing pulse.

 _She's going to think I hate her_ , Bucky decided. _But at least this time I'm still me, not … him._

It was progress. Not as much progress as he thought he'd made, thanks to Steve's and Natalia's - no, Natasha's - help, and that was frustrating. Still, he knew they were there for him, and he asked JARVIS to contact both of them.

Natasha arrived first, and wouldn't let him avoid looking at her.

"This is what they do," she reminded him. "Hydra, the Red Room, all of them. They take who you are, what you are, and twist it for their own amusement."

"Amusement?" Bucky said. "I thought you were going to say purposes."

"That, too," Natasha agreed. "But it can't not be amusing to them - Captain America's best friend, right-hand man, forced to work toward goals he would find anathema. How much more amusing to take a ladies' man and charmer and turn him into -"

In what he was coming to learn was an unusual display of tact, Natasha broke off the thought before she finished it, but Bucky could finish it for her. They'd turned him into someone afraid of a beautiful woman.

Working with Natasha and Steve, he'd discovered that there were layers of that programming. First was a baseline fear of any woman. _Never overlook the female of the species. They are often the deadliest, for their weapons are subtle and hidden._

That, at least, he'd mostly purged. He could greet female staff members politely, if not with any sort of charm. He'd take it, at least for now.

The next layer of programming related specifically to women he considered beautiful. They were the deadliest of all, to be avoided or killed if they got in his way.

There was one loophole, though - sometimes, he'd had to work with those women on a mission. Those women were to be tolerated of necessity, but not trusted outside the parameters of the mission.

That's how he'd come to some degree of comfort with Natasha. It had been Steve's idea, and the irony that a man who couldn't have gotten anyone half as beautiful as Natasha to even look at him before the war was now giving advice on handling beautiful women made Bucky's head spin.

"Tasha's an Avenger," Steve had said. "A comrade on missions. Maybe if you start there, you can build from that rather than trying to tear down the programming from the ground up."

So he'd trained with Natasha, even gone on small missions with her, and it helped. _That the asset was standing here listening to her, not trying to kill her, was proof of that_ , Bucky thought wryly. _But …_

"It's not enough," he said aloud.

Natasha quirked one eyebrow at him, and he clarified, "Working with you. It's not enough. I have to not run in a panic every time I see her."

"Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain," Natasha said.

"Pop psychology?"

"Mark Twain. He had a point," Natasha continued. "That's what you've done with me, and you've improved since you did. Now you need to do the same thing with Pepper."

"She's not an Avenger," Bucky pointed out as the door to his rooms opened to admit Steve. "I can't treat her like she's a comrade on a mission." More to the point, the asset rebelled at the thought, making Bucky's fingers twitch.

"Who's not an Avenger?" Steve asked.

"Pepper," Natasha replied.

"Natasha suggested treating Ms. Potts like I treated her might help," Bucky clarified. "But Ms. Potts isn't an Avenger."

Steve nodded, his eyebrows knit together in thought. Bucky knew that expression, had seen it often before the Howling Commandos went on a mission. This was Captain America, not Steve Rogers, planning a mission. Bucky bit back a grimace to see that expression applied to him and glanced away … into Natasha's knowing eyes.

Bucky glared at her, and she just smiled.

"She could be a mission, though," Steve said.

The asset stirred. Bucky tamped it down. "Not a good idea."

"Not a good choice of words," Steve acknowledged. "What I mean is, what if you were assigned to protect her?"

"Still not seeing this as a good idea."

"A very good idea," Natasha countered in a tone that made even the asset listen to her. "Pepper's high-profile. Intelligent, wealthy in her own right, CEO of Stark Industries, friend of Iron Man and the Avengers. She has bodyguards whenever she leaves the Tower without Tony or one of us with her. You can be one of them."

Bucky opened his mouth to protest, but Steve cut him off.

"When you're not helping the rest of us," he said.

Bucky thought it over for a moment. "It could work," he allowed finally.

"You'll have to cut your hair, of course," Natasha said. "The bodyguards closest to Stark and Pepper are ridiculously clean-cut."

Her words sent a shiver down Bucky's spine - a shiver that lodged right above the crack of his ass, where his soulmark was.

Bucky didn't know when they'd appeared - he'd spent too much of the past century in cryo-sleep, and none of his handlers would have cared that he had them, if they'd even noticed. He - the asset - had been fully theirs already; there was no need to find a soulmate that could be leveraged to make him do their will. But he would bet that his handlers never noticed the words in neat, feminine cursive.

"You cut your hair," they read, and if his handlers had seen the words, they would have shaved his head so that no one would ever say the words to him.

They hadn't shaved his head, though. They'd let his hair grow when he was out of cryo-sleep, and now it hung to his shoulders in shaggy waves. He hadn't bothered to cut it since he'd remembered who he was - he'd been too busy destroying Hydra bases and then trying to find a place in this modern world to care, and too concerned about the asset re-emerging to put anyone, especially his soulmate, at risk.

Now, though, he had to cut his hair - meeting his soulmate couldn't be too far away. The thought filled him with a dreadful anticipation. He could only hope the asset recognized and responded to her, too.

#

"Is it just me, or does Barnes run away from everybody?" Pepper asked Steve the following day. She'd made it a point to come down to the common area by 5:30 a.m., jet lag and all, to be sure to catch him after his pre-dawn run. "Because if that's so, I really think he needs more therapy."

Steve grinned. "You should feel flattered."

Of all the things she might have expected him to say, that wasn't on her list. "I… don't?"

"Buck's fine with everyone except beautiful women. When he was with Hydra, the only beautiful women he saw tended to be the not-nice kind – Red Room like Natasha used to be, for example. He's all right with Tasha now, but other beautiful women trigger something and his flight instinct activates. He mentioned to me that he'd seen you a few times and fled, and asked me if I'd tell you please not to be offended, but you're so beautiful he can't cope."

Pepper couldn't help but blush, even though she knew it was a deeply unflattering look with her strawberry-blonde hair and freckles. _Barnes thinks I'm beautiful. Bucky Barnes, the man who looks like an S+M version of a GQ model..._

"Well," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "please tell him that I'd never hurt him and he doesn't have to be afraid of me. I don't want him to feel uncomfortable, but we do both live here…"

Steve was giving her a knowing, amused look. Pepper resisted the urge to run like a scared rabbit herself, instead forcing herself to pour a coffee with an espresso shot before calmly turning to the elevators that would take her to her office to begin the day.

Okay, once the elevator doors closed behind her, she could admit it: she'd fled, this time. She'd fled from Steve's too-knowing smile.

But, dammit, she was only human - well, mostly; the Extremis had changed her forever - and even the history books spoke of Bucky Barnes' attractiveness, both physical and otherwise. She was allowed, even expected, to find him attractive.

That thought made her pause halfway to her desk. She'd never thought of him as particularly attractive before, not when she'd studied pictures and films of him for her history classes. _Too pretty_ , she'd thought then. What had changed?

The answer was blindingly simple, and obvious. _She_ had changed, and not just because of the Extremis. Years as first Tony Stark's assistant, this his friend, then (if temporarily) his lover, and finally CEO of Stark Industries had changed her. Was it so surprising that the changes manifested in unexpected ways?

 _Not really_ , she answered herself. _But why does one of those ways have to involve Bucky Barnes?_

#

Bucky was surprised by how much easier it was to be around Pepper Potts when he knew he wouldn't have to speak to her.

He'd been on bodyguard duty for three weeks now, and although the first day the asset had stirred within him, a dark whisper of _kill her, she's not safe_ , that had been easy to control.

Now, Pepper was just another person. Or she would be, Bucky amended, if he weren't her bodyguard. He'd have to try talking to her again, and see what happened. For now, though, he listened to two channels of chatter in his earpiece, one for the bodyguards with Pepper, the other for the security team outside, while still studying his principal.

Pepper was so accustomed to having silent guards around her now she regarded them as furniture, never looking at them properly, even though she always smiled and said thank you when one of them opened a door for her or such. Not that Bucky ever got that close. But when the bullets started flying his body reacted outside his conscious control, instinct taking over to protect her with his own body.

#

The third time Pepper saw Bucky Barnes, he saved her life.

She was touring a manufacturing plant when the bullets started flying. She'd had absolutely no idea that one of the four silent suited bodyguards following her around was Barnes until he moved with inhuman speed to throw her to the ground, flinging himself on top of her as a shield, holding up his metal arm. The bullets spanged off it even as he whipped a gun out and returned fire.

"Are you all right?" Bucky asked once the shooting stopped. He left his fellow guards to mop up, more concerned about Pepper's safety. "Were you hit?"

"You cut your hair," Pepper said inconsequentially, vaguely aware that was an extremely odd thing to be worried about in the wake of being shot at and then Barnes speaking to her. Saying her soulmark words, no less.

Sapphire-blue eyes widened, a black eyebrow quirked. "Had to. Wasn't going to find my soulmate until after I had."

"Oh. Oh!" Pepper stared up at him. At that GQ-model face, at the full pink lips that looked so incongruously sensual on a man. "You're talking to me now."

"Be rude not to since I'm lyin' on top of ya, huh? Soulmate."

Pepper couldn't help staring at his mouth, as it widened in a smirky grin. _This_ , she thought, _this is the James Buchanan Barnes who was Steve Rogers' best friend. The ladies' man, the joker, the charmer._

"I won't put up with you playing around on me," she warned. "I had enough of that with Tony."

"Why would I want to?" Bucky appeared honestly puzzled. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on." Realising he had to be crushing her, he stood and helped her to her feet, but quickly hustled her over to a corner of the room and blocked her in with his body, shielding her until he got the all-clear in his earpiece.

He was a couple of inches taller than her even though she wore high heels. And so _strong_. Pepper pretty much melted as Bucky caged her in with his arms, leaning in to murmur in her ear.

"I'm on the clock so I'm not gonna kiss ya now. But later on," he gave her a heated, meaningful look, "I'm gonna find out just how spicy you are, my Pepper."

Her knees wouldn't hold her up. He had to carry her to the car, claiming she was too shocked to walk.

Which she was. Just not in the way the other bodyguards thought.


	3. Chapter 3

Later, safely in her private office space aboard the Stark Industries jet that would take her back to Manhattan, Pepper berated herself for such an unprofessional, even fangirlish, reaction to Bucky's words. She was no blushing virgin, so why should her knees buckle at the hint – or even the promise – of sex to come?

In all fairness, that promise had come on the heels of an assassination attempt and the discovery of her soulmate, so she probably should cut herself some slack and focus on more important things, like who'd tried to kill her and why?

To do that, Pepper would have to leave her office to speak to her bodyguards – the same bodyguards who had watched her be carried out of the plant like a child. And that's why she berated herself, she realized. It wasn't because she'd been so badly shocked, but because she now looked like a weak, fragile woman, rather than a competent executive. Now she'd have to fight doubly hard to reverse that perception, especially if word that she'd been carried out of the building hit the news or social media.

Better to start rebuilding her image sooner than later. Pepper rose from the desk and crossed to the door leading to the main cabin. She opened the door to reveal a cluster of people gathered around a computer screen.

Her gaze landed on Bucky without her conscious decision. He stood to the rear of the group, arms crossed over his chest, scowling at whatever was on the monitor. Then, as though he felt her gaze on him, Bucky looked over at her and his scowl melted into a brief smile meant just for her, before he turned back to whatever he'd been studying.

"Do we know who the shooter was?" Pepper asked.

"We haven't found anything on the video yet," the bodyguard team leader – Pepper searched her memory for his name, found Manuel Cardona – said.

"Male, fair-skinned, Caucasian or possibly an Oriental mix," Bucky said. "Positioned near the skylight with an AR-15. Got out via the skylight, probably had a helicopter waiting for him."

"You saw all that on the video?" Cardona sounded skeptical.

"I saw all that inside the plant," Bucky countered.

"While you were protecting Ms. Potts?"

"I didn't have my eyes closed while I was." Bucky's tone clearly conveyed a, _Did you?_

Cardona flushed an angry red. "You shouldn't be discussing this with the principal."

It was time to step in, Pepper decided. "The principal asked."

There it was, Pepper saw, the condescending expression she'd been expecting. Cardona probably didn't even realize he was wearing it when he said, "With all due respect, ma'am, this is our responsibility."

It wasn't "don't worry your pretty little head about it," but it might as well have been. Pepper gave Cardona a thin-lipped smile. "Stark Industries is my responsibility, Mr. Cardona, and so is my life. When a threat to one threatens the other, then my responsibility is doubled."

Pepper caught Bucky's grin from the corner of her eye, but couldn't allow herself to focus on it, on him, the way she wanted. She still had to finish reminding Cardona of his duty. "Please keep me informed of everything you find out about the shooter, especially whether or not he was in any way connected with the Mandarin."

"Yes, ma'am," Cardona said.

For the briefest moment, Pepper debated whether to return to her office or remain in the main cabin. She could admit, if only to herself, that the main cabin won because Bucky was there.

Pepper crossed to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup before taking a seat by a window and pulling out her smartphone. At the very least, she could attend to some of the emails and texts that had come in since she'd first stepped inside the manufacturing plant. She settled in to work, letting the conversations around her fade into the background.

#

Bucky had been aware of Pepper from the moment her office door opened, wishing this were the time or place for more than a quick smile. Then Cardona had tried to dismiss her. Bucky wanted to step in, to slam Cardona's head against or through the nearest surface. How _dare_ the man try to dismiss Pepper Potts? Even when he'd run from her presence, Bucky knew she was a woman like Peggy Carter, not to be trifled with or dismissed.

And that was why he held back, allowing Pepper to handle Cardona in her own way, and she'd done so with graceful strength. Settling down to work in the main cabin further emphasized that she was not going to be intimidated. Bucky wished he had the right to feel as proud of her as he did, but he'd made no contribution to the woman she was.

No, he'd just been gifted with that woman as his soulmate. Bucky offered silent thanks to whomever or whatever might be listening for that gift, then refocused on Cardona and the search for the shooter.

As he followed the conversation, Bucky realized that they had apparently slotted the shooter into a one-off-crazy category, someone with no discernible motive or hatred of Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, or Stark Industries. That might be true - Bucky wasn't familiar enough with Stark to guess - but Pepper had specifically asked about one person, and Cardona seemed to have glossed right over that. Time to rectify that situation.

"Who's the Mandarin?" Bucky asked.

"He's dead," Cardona said.

"That's his status. I asked who he is."

Cardona gave an exaggerated sigh and turned to face Bucky. "He was Aldrich Killian, a terrorist."

Bucky waited, but Cardona remained silent. It was a stupid display of power, Bucky thought, but some men needed them. Concealing a smirk that might have been too close to a sneer, Bucky shrugged and pulled out his StarkPhone to begin a search, human and metal thumbs flying over the virtual keyboard.

"What are you doing?" Cardona demanded.

"Finding the answer to my question."

"The Mandarin is dead," Cardona repeated. "Killed a few months ago."

"Terrorists rarely work completely alone." Bucky didn't look up from his phone. "And Ms. Potts specifically asked about a connection between him and the shooter."

And with good reason, he thought, going suddenly, coldly, still as he read. The Mandarin had attacked Tony Stark - not surprising, given Stark's flamboyantly annoying personality and that he'd publicly called out the terrorist. But Pepper had almost been killed during that attack, and then she'd been kidnapped by Killian. He'd almost lost his soulmate before he'd had the chance to find her, all thanks to Stark's stupidity.

The asset wanted to kill Stark. Bucky debated it, but ultimately decided against it. Bad for teamwork, Steve would say, and Pepper still had some affection for Stark. But, Bucky decided, allowing the asset to have a conversation with Stark might be in order. At the least, it might be amusing.

"What's the rest?" he asked, risking a glance over his shoulder at Pepper. She appeared to be engrossed in whatever she was doing, and he hoped she stayed that way.

"The rest?" Cardona asked.

"The rest that never made it into the news," Bucky clarified.

Cardona gave him a thin smile. "That's above your pay grade, soldier."

Bucky studied the other man for a moment. He recognized the part of him that wanted to go all caveman, as Natasha had described it once, to protect and impress his woman, his soulmate, but knew this was the wrong time and place to indulge that part.

Steve's voice came back to him from decades away. "Strategy, Buck. It all comes down to strategy."

The punk had been right then and, annoyingly, he was still right now. Bucky returned his phone to his pocket.

"Just trying to be thorough, sir," he said.

"Not your job," Cardona told him, and turned away.

The asset let him live, but it was a near thing.


	4. Chapter 4

When the plane landed in Manhattan, Pepper wasn't surprised that Bucky took the lead in getting her from the plane to the car that would take them back to the Tower. She was surprised that he stayed silent on the trip, and then thought that she shouldn't have been surprised.

"I'm on the clock," he'd said back at the plant, and she realized he still considered himself on the clock, even if they were soulmates.

It was, Pepper decided, a refreshingly welcome change from Tony's selfishness. Not that Tony couldn't be generous and charming when he chose, but for Tony, the discovery of his soulmate would've taken precedence over everything else, even a firefight. For James Buchanan Barnes, duty came first. She respected that, because it was a trait she shared.

She allowed Bucky and the others to get her safely from the car into the Tower elevator, giving the team a warm thanks for saving her life. She saw Bucky's lip quirk and managed not to smile in return before the elevator deposited her at her apartment.

It was barely five, thanks to supersonic travel, and though she usually worked at least until 7, Pepper decided that being shot at was a good reason to knock off early. Certainly if anyone on staff had had the kind of day she'd had, she'd tell them to take the rest of the week off, with pay. She didn't have that luxury, but she could take the rest of the evening to herself, starting with a bath and a glass of wine.

The last of the bathwater draining from the tub, Pepper wrapped herself in a thick cotton robe and padded toward the kitchen for a refill of her wine.

"Ms. Potts," JARVIS said, "Sergeant Barnes would like to see you."

"Of course," Pepper began, then realized what she was – more accurately, wasn't – wearing. "Not. Not right away, I mean. Five minutes?"

There was a brief pause, then JARVIS said, "Five minutes."

This wasn't a date, Pepper told herself, so there was no need to panic over what to wear, and he was her soulmate, so he should be accept her whether she wore makeup or not. Still, she found herself debating the merits of yoga pants and a camisole over cutoffs and a camp shirt. She settled on a combination of jeans, camisole, and camp shirt, and was at the door just as she heard a knock.

She opened the door to see that Bucky, too, had opted for jeans, a black T-shirt, and a gray hoodie. It seemed they were in synch even in this, Pepper thought.

Bucky gave her an appreciative glance that didn't linger too long. "Hope you don't mind my dropping in like this."

"As long as you're not going to run away again," Pepper said.

"No chance." It was a simple declaration, and for all that it wasn't in any sense romantic, Pepper still felt a warm glow of acceptance.

"Come in, then." Pepper stepped back and he passed her, surveying the apartment with the same scrutiny he'd used at the manufacturing plant – was it just that morning?

"You're not on the clock now," she said.

"No, but this is who I am now." Bucky continued his survey of the apartment, even going down the hallway to look into the bedroom and bathroom. He returned to the living room, facing her. "What I was, what I did, will always be part of me. The difference is now I can use those skills for myself, not under someone else's orders." He paused, then added, "I'm sorry I couldn't have met you the way I was before."

Pepper couldn't help smiling at that. "I'm glad you didn't. The Winter Soldier wouldn't have saved my life."

Bucky shot a startled glance at her, then chuckled. "I meant before that."

"I know. But maybe I needed some part of you to be the Winter Soldier, not just Bucky Barnes. Wine?" Pepper added, suddenly remembering the glass waiting for her in the kitchen.

"Sure. Or beer, if you have it."

He followed her into the kitchen, silent while she poured more wine for herself and pulled a hazelnut stout from the fridge. He raised an eyebrow when she offered him the beer.

"I keep some of what everyone likes," she said. "That's Steve's favorite, so I hope it'll do."

Bucky grinned. "It's beer, it's cold. It'll definitely do."

He took the bottle from her, took a swallow, and nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that's Steve." Then he pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and offered it to her.

"What's this?"

"A handwriting sample," Bucky told her. "We didn't demand to see each other's words right away."

"One of the customs I wish had lingered," Pepper murmured. Then she unfolded the note, read the words penned in a jerky form of old-fashioned script: "Are you all right? Were you hit?"

"Yes," she said. "That's a match for my words." She pulled a pen from a drawer and wrote, "You cut your hair," beneath the words Bucky had written.

"It's probably a moot point," she said, "but you'll want confirmation, too."

Bucky barely glanced at the paper. "It's a match."

He didn't seem inclined to say anything more, so Pepper asked, "What now?"

Bucky ran his metal hand through his hair. "No clue," he admitted. "I don't know what soulmates are supposed to do these days."

"Same thing they always did," Pepper said gently. "Get to know each other, build a life together."

He grinned briefly. "The devil's in the details. What does getting to know each other mean these days? To go by some of the movies Stark's had me and Steve watching, we should be naked already."

"Oh, please don't think Tony is any guideline for what's normal."

Bucky laughed. "I don't - he's Howard's boy, through and through, and Howard Stark made me – the old me – look like a slouch with the ladies. But I haven't found anything else that might help."

"Probably because everything's so individual these days." Pepper took a swallow of wine. "There are a lot of things I appreciate about the modern world, but sometimes I wonder if we got too modern, too fast."

"You always get philosophical on a first date?"

Pepper laughed. "Aren't people supposed to get philosophical when they've come close to dying?"

"You weren't," Bucky said, and his expression now was serious, more the Winter Soldier than the charmer. "Not close at all."

"Closer than most people come," Pepper corrected, then smiled again, hoping to lighten the mood. "What would you have done, if you'd found me in the '40's?"

"Asked you to dinner, maybe a show."

"No reason we can't do that now," Pepper said. "But if it's all right with you, I'd rather order dinner in."

Bucky gave that smirky grin again. "Stayin' in with a beautiful woman's always all right with me."

Pepper covered a blush by pulling a fat folder of take-out menus from a drawer. "What do you like?"

"Whatever you want," Bucky said, which was no help at all.

After a moment, Pepper decided. "JARVIS, will you order the usual from Piedmont and from Archi's?"

"Italian and Thai," she told Bucky as JARVIS acknowledged the request.

"That'll work." Bucky took another swallow of beer, studied the bottle. "Who's the Mandarin?"

That came from nowhere. Pepper shook off her surprise by saying, "Pardon?"

"You said we should look for a connection between him and the shooter earlier," Bucky reminded her. "Cardona doesn't think it's worth pursuing."

"You do?"

"I think your gut's worth trusting. Who is he?"

How was it that the simplest words could send warmth flooding through her if Bucky said them?

"It's kind of complicated," Pepper said, gesturing him toward the living area. She curled on the sofa while he sat on the coffee table facing her, and she told him the whole story, from the terrorist attack that injured Happy, through Tony's public challenge to the Mandarin, the attack on the Malibu house, Tony's disappearance, her kidnapping, the actor playing the Mandarin as a cover for the real Mandarin, the final fight with Killian and the destruction of Tony's armor in a fireworks display bigger than any other she'd ever seen.

She was just finishing the story when JARVIS announced that their dinner was on the way up. Pepper met the staff at the door and Bucky was there to help her carry the food to the kitchen. The simple rituals of setting out drinks, plates, and flatware felt different, more meaningful, when she was doing them with her soulmate. Pepper hoped that didn't mean he expected her to become Suzy Homemaker, and then berated herself for the thought.

"What's the rest of it?" Bucky asked when they were seated at the table. He'd served himself large amounts of panang curry, basil chicken, fettuccine Alfredo, and spaghetti carbonara, and Pepper was glad she'd ordered as much as she had.

"The rest of what?" she asked.

"What happened with Killian. There were places you hesitated, looked away, gave all kinds of signals that you didn't want to talk about it."

"I don't," she said firmly.

"You have to." He matched her tone, surprising her. Even Tony had been known to back down from the tone she'd used, and here was her soulmate giving it back to her. "If he, or someone connected with him, is after you, the smallest detail could be important."

Pepper studied him for a long moment. He didn't look away, nor had she expected him to. Finally, she blew out a breath. Bucky's mouth quirked, didn't quite smile. She'd given in and he knew it, but unlike Tony he could be gracious about it.

"Killian kidnapped me and injected me with Extremis as leverage to get Tony to fix its flaws."

Bucky's expression tightened, as did his grip on his beer bottle. Even though he held it in his flesh hand, Pepper feared it might shatter given his serum-enhanced strength. It took several long moments before Bucky could speak, and when he did, his voice was low and dangerous. "He did fix it, right?"

"With Bruce's help," Pepper said. "But I'm not the same as I was before. It's still in me, like whatever was done to you is still in you."

"What are its effects?"

"Cellular regeneration and regrowth. I'm stronger than most and recover from injuries more quickly."

"How strong?"

"I haven't checked. I was just grateful to be alive."

"I understand." Bucky smiled briefly, sobered again. "But now we need to know."

"Why?"

"Cardona's writing off the attack earlier as a one-off. He might be right, but it's too early to make that call. On the assumption that there'll be another attempt, we need to know how much you can do for yourself, so we can better protect you."

"We – the Avengers?" Pepper asked.

"We your bodyguards."

Pepper blinked at him, startled. "You think Cardona will let you stay a bodyguard?"

"Cardona doesn't know I'm anything else. We'll keep it that way until the shooter and whoever hired him is dealt with."

Pepper decided she'd rather not know just what Bucky considered "dealing with" the shooter, shifted her attention to his earlier question. "How do we determine how strong I am? Do you want me to lift weights or something?"

He grinned. "Or something. Stand up."

Puzzled, Pepper stood. Bucky faced her, held up his right hand. "Hit my hand. Hard as you can."

Something inside her recoiled at the thought of hitting him, her soulmate. "What if I hurt you?"

"I heal fast, remember? C'mon, hit me."

Pepper balled a fist, swung. The slap of impact echoed through the living room.

Bucky smirked. "You hit like a girl."

"I am a girl, in case you haven't noticed."

"I've noticed, believe me." Bucky's voice took on a deeper character, then he cleared his throat and spoke again. "Again. Hit me like you mean it."

Pepper swung again, harder, and her hand stung from the impact.

"Is that all you've got, Potts?" Bucky demanded. "Think about the maddest you've ever been at someone. Get angry."

 _That was the problem_ , Pepper thought. She'd spent years keeping her temper under control, the better to handle the emotional grab-bag that was Tony Stark. Tony changes the core business of Stark Industries on a whim? Pepper was there to assure the media, calmly, that this was a good idea and Stark Industries would be back, better than ever. Obadiah Stane goes on a rampage and nearly kills Tony and destroys Stark Industries? Pepper handled the resulting press storm with aplomb. She couldn't afford to get angry, ever, and now Bucky Barnes – her soulmate, no less – was demanding not only that she get angry, but that she hit him.

 _How dare he?_ The question echoed in her mind, and in that echo, Pepper felt the stirrings of anger.

How dare he try to remake her into something, someone, she wasn't, didn't want to be, and could never be even if she did? He was her soulmate, the one person who was supposed to accept her completely for who she was, and now he was demanding she become someone else, just to suit his purposes?

Pepper screamed her anguish. Before she could consciously register the action, she lashed out at Bucky and had the satisfaction of seeing him recoil from the impact.

Then he was gathering her into his arms, comforting, soothing. "That's my girl," he murmured.

"Am I?" Pepper asked, and hated herself for it. "Your girl?"

"Definitely," Bucky said. "Can't imagine anyone better suited to be."

His words soothed the anger she'd summoned, and she snuggled further into his arms, only to have him pull away and look down into her eyes. Her breath caught at the intensity of his expression.

"Probably shouldn't do this, me bein' your bodyguard and all," Bucky murmured.

"You're not on the clock now," Pepper whispered.

"No," he agreed, and bent his mouth to hers.

Beneath the lingering traces of hazelnut stout, he tasted of leather and rich, dark earth. Pepper wouldn't have thought that combination would appeal, but it was oddly comforting even as it aroused, and she found herself clutching his shoulders to pull him closer, deeper into her mouth so she could savor the taste of him.

Pepper heard a low moan, realized it came from deep in her throat just as he growled in response. The sound activated something primal deep within her and unconsciously she rubbed her body against his. He growled again, and then she felt the chill of the air conditioning as he pushed away from her.

Surely that mewl of protest hadn't come from her?

"Stop, doll. We gotta stop." Bucky's tone held an edge of desperation, and Pepper knew why. If they didn't stop, they wouldn't stop, and then they'd be lost in the bonding, and Bucky wouldn't let himself get lost while he had a duty to fulfill.

"I know," Pepper said, surprised by the rasp in her own voice. "I know."

He didn't look at her as he crossed to the door. He opened and closed it silently, leaving Pepper standing in the middle of her living room, her lips still tingling.

#

This time, Bucky didn't stop until the elevator doors closed behind him, but it was for a far different reason. He was shaking, he realized, down to his metal fingertips, with barely-repressed desire, desire that he could not, _must_ not, indulge. Not until Pepper was safe.

"Where would you like to go, Sergeant Barnes?" JARVIS's question startled Bucky back to the present.

 _Back to Pepper._ "Not a good idea for me to go there right now."

"Where shall the elevator take you?" Now JARVIS's tone held a hint of humor, even though the question required a serious answer.

Bucky thought over the possibilities. He could work off his frustration in the gym. Or he could try to do something productive first. "Is Banner still awake?"

"Dr. Banner is in his lab."

"That'll do."

Minutes later, Bucky walked into the lab. Banner didn't look up immediately, though Bucky had been sure to make enough noise when he walked that Banner must know someone had arrived. Still, Bucky decided it was better to wait for Banner to finish whatever he was doing than to surprise him in the middle of something delicate or, worse, potentially explosive, and risk the Other Guy showing up.

"Couldn't sleep?" Banner asked after a few minutes.

"Got a question for you."

Banner tapped a key on his computer, then pulled off his glasses to meet Bucky's gaze. "Shoot."

"Tell me about Extremis. Specifically its effects on Pepper."

Bucky ignored Banner's raised eyebrow at the casual use of Pepper's name, and after a moment, Banner shrugged. "Do you want the science behind it?"

"I want it in English, whatever that takes. Or Russian, if you prefer."

Banner sighed. "Have a seat. This might take a while."


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky was still mulling over everything Banner had told him when he met Steve the next morning for their zero-dark-thirty run. This morning's route would take them up Second Avenue, across 59th Street, through Central Park, further west on 110th Street, north on Broadway all the way to 145th, and then back around the east side of the island to Avengers Tower.

By unspoken agreement, today they kept an easy pace, not much faster than a normal human would keep, and the steady rhythm of feet against pavement lulled Bucky into a relaxed, almost meditative state that he hoped would refresh him as much as the sleep he hadn't had last night would have.

They were passing the architectural monstrosity of the Guggenheim Museum when Steve spoke. "I heard you saved Pepper's life yesterday. That mean you're not afraid of her anymore?"

Bucky snorted. "Hard to be afraid of my soulmate."

Steve's footsteps beside him faltered for a step, then Steve caught up to him again. "Really?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised."

"Not that it's Pepper. Not much," Steve corrected himself when Bucky glanced at him. "That you have words at all. Neither of us did, before."

"I checked her birthdate, and near as I can figure, I would've been in cryo-sleep when they appeared." Then Steve's phrasing registered. "You have words now, too?"

"No one's said them yet."

"They will," Bucky said. It was easy to be confident for Steve. If anyone deserved a soulmate, it was him. "Hell, if I can have a soulmate, anyone can."

"Such enthusiasm."

"Don't tell anyone, willya?"

"Buck –"

"There's a reason. Pardon me, ma'am." Bucky dodged around an older woman out walking her yappy dog, fell back into step with Steve.

"What's the reason?"

"Wanna be sure yesterday was the one-off Cardona thinks it was."

"Why do you think it wasn't?"

"Gut." It was all Bucky needed to say. During the war, they'd each relied on the other's gut feelings, and those of the rest of the Howling Commandos, too often not to pay attention to them now.

"Fair enough. Got anything else to go on?"

"You know what happened with Stark and the Mandarin?"

"In broad terms."

"I got all the files from Hill. There's still one loose end out there. The actor."

"I thought he was just a stooge."

"That's what we're supposed to think. I'm gonna go talk to him."

"No," Steve said. "I will."

"Steve -"

"No, Buck. You need to be with her, just in case something else happens. You'd never forgive yourself if you weren't."

Bucky wanted to object, but Steve was, annoyingly, right again. Unfortunately. "You can't interrogate someone for shit."

"Tasha can."

The asset smiled.

#

Late that afternoon, Bucky was sitting in a briefing on the Ritz Hotel, where Pepper was scheduled to give a speech before the American Women Business Owners organization the following week, when his phone vibrated. A check of the display showed that it was Steve calling, and with a quick apology that did nothing to soften Cardona's glare, Bucky slipped into the hallway to answer the call.

"What'd you find out?" he asked.

"Not as much as we would've liked," Steve answered.

"Natasha losing her touch?"

"Good thing she didn't hear you say that. No, but she never got the chance to use her skills. The prison came under attack as we were being signed in."

"Who'd want to attack a prison?"

"That's where it gets interesting," Steve said. "Seems a reporter has been interviewing Trevor Slattery for a documentary over the last couple of months. Today was their last session. They'd been at it for a while when the attack began."

Bucky saw the connection right away. "The reporter was in on it?"

"His camera was rigged to conceal a gun that he used to kill a guard and one prisoner who was in the room with Slattery."

"What about Slattery?"

"Injured, in surgery right now. It'll be a while before we can talk to him."

"Other witnesses?"

"Natasha's talking to one now, an inmate named Justin Hammer. She met him last year while she was on assignment at Stark Industries." Steve paused. "I don't know the details, but she seems to be enjoying this interrogation more than usual."

Bucky winced. "Hope she leaves him functional."

"I did. Mostly." That was Natasha and Bucky realized Steve had switched to speakerphone mode. "Unfortunately, he doesn't know anything. We'll have to wait until after Slattery is out of surgery."

Bucky scowled. They'd done the best they could, he knew that, but they hadn't learned anything that would help Pepper. Then something Steve had said earlier registered. "What about the reporter?"

"He was probably using a false identity," Natasha said.

"It's a place to start while we wait," Bucky said. "Send me whatever you have on him."

#

At two forty-five that afternoon, Pepper found herself with an unexpected break in her schedule. The tech-types had finally managed to talk to Tony, so they no longer needed her assistance to help them find an answer to a particularly vexing engineering design problem.

Any other day, Pepper might have been annoyed that some people still saw her only as a connection to Tony Stark, but today she found that she was glad for the break. She didn't think of herself as particularly delicate, but she was still a little off her form thanks to yesterday's events.

For just a moment, she considered catching up on e-mails and phone calls that had built up since yesterday afternoon. Then she decided that if anything was really important, she'd be contacted again. Right now, she needed to work off the stress that had settled between her shoulder blades, and since she and Bucky were keeping their relationship quiet for now, there was only one thing to do.

"JARVIS, please have a range prepped."

"Yes, Miss Potts."

Ten minutes later, Pepper stepped up to the firing line table to see a Glock 26 waiting for her, unloaded and its slide locked open. Two ten-round clips and a hundred rounds of ammo lay on the table beside it.

Pepper readjusted her ear protection - damned ear-muffs might be noise cancelling, but they didn't fit over her eye protection in any semblance of comfort. Maybe she should ask Tony to work on a better design - before methodically loading each clip. Then she sent the target back to twenty-five yards, the farthest this particular lane allowed, and picked up the Glock.

A steady _bang bang bang_ echoed off the walls as she fired. Twenty shots, reload, twenty shots, reload. The hundred rounds went quickly, and when the echo of the last shot faded, Pepper ejected the clip, locked the slide open, and put the gun down on the carpet-lined table before flicking the switch that would bring her target back to her.

"Range is cold. Repeat, range is cold."

Pepper flinched - not because she didn't recognize the voice, but because she hadn't realized anyone had joined her on the range. Maria Hill was never an intrusion, though, even when she stepped close behind Pepper to study the target.

"Low and left. You're still anticipating the recoil," Maria told her, the words muffled by the ear protection she wore.

"More the noise," Pepper said. "Even with ear protectors on, it's really loud."

"Double up," Maria suggested. "Ear plugs and muffs."

"Then I won't be able to hear anything. Instructions, I mean."

Maria frowned at the target. "You've got the basics. You just need refinement. There won't be many more instructions, just lots of practice."

"Just one more thing to make time for," Pepper quipped and Maria chuckled.

"Sounds like you've had a rough day. Want to get sushi and talk about it?"

"Oh, yes, please." Until Maria made the offer, Pepper hadn't realized how much she did need to talk to someone, and Maria would understand better than most.

"Then go get cleaned up and meet me in the lobby. I'll make reservations."

#

When she arrived in the lobby, the stink of gunpowder residue washed from her hands, and her businesswear swapped for casual slacks and a shirt, Pepper was surprised to see that Maria wasn't alone. Manuel Cardona stood with her.

"We're just going to get sushi," Pepper said.

"Yes, ma'am," Cardona acknowledged. "But after yesterday, we're under orders that you don't leave the building without protection."

"Maria will be with me."

"Yes, ma'am," Cardona repeated. "And she'll want to talk to you, not be on the lookout for threats."

"I usually am, anyway," Maria said. "But he's right. Tonight I'm your friend, that's all."

Pepper wanted to protest, and Maria must've read that in her face, because she smiled. "It was my order, Pepper."

Pepper knew when she was beaten and gave in with as much grace as she could muster. "Just make sure to have some sushi, too," she told Cardona.

"I'll get mine to go," he told her.

#

Sakura Sushi was one of the few delights Pepper had found in New York. It was just a little off 42nd Street, but apparently far enough away that tourists rarely frequented it. Indeed, most of its clientele were themselves Japanese, a sure sign that the place was good.

Besides the superb sushi, Sakura had one other redeeming feature - a few side booths that were relatively quiet and private. Pepper and Maria took one of those, Cardona taking a position nearby, and within minutes had ordered green tea, plum wine, and an array of sushi and sashimi.

Once the tea and wine had been brought, Maria sat back in her seat. Pepper looked down at her tea, for the first time uncertain what Maria's assessing gaze might read from her.

"What's really gotten you so upset?"

"I'm not upset," Pepper protested.

"You're off-kilter," Maria said. "I can count on one hand the number of times you've voluntarily gone to the gun range and have fingers left over. I saw you after the Killian incident, and you were more scared that the Extremis would hurt someone else than you were off-kilter. So, what's got you so upset?"

Pepper glanced toward where Cardona stood several feet away. The distance, combined with the Japanese pop music playing over the speakers, gave her the confidence to answer honestly. Still, she leaned forward. "I met my soulmate yesterday."

Maria looked surprised for an instant, then frowned. "Shouldn't you be happy about that?"

"It's Barnes."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "A lot of women - and men - would be grateful they got someone that handsome."

"I am, believe me," Pepper said. "I'm also wondering what it means for me."

"You'll have to give me more words if you want an actual opinion."

"We've both been changed - him by Hydra, me by the Extremis." Pepper sipped her tea. "It seems clear he's going to be an Avenger -"

"He already is."

"Am I supposed to be one, too? The Extremis gives me the ability to be."

"Ability isn't everything."

"No, but it's something." And something that she'd been thinking about ever since she'd confirmed that Tony had, indeed, fixed her. She looked up at Maria. "Why couldn't you have gotten the Extremis? You'd know what to do with it."

"You do, too," Maria said. "You just have to admit it."


	6. Chapter 6

When they returned to the Tower, Cardona insisted on seeing Maria and Pepper up to their respective floors.

"The tower's safe," Pepper assured him, but Maria shook her head.

"Don't bother trying, Pepper," she said. "I trained him myself."

Pepper shook her head as they stepped into the elevator, her hand hesitating over the panel. "Nightcap?"

"Sure. Plum wine's never been my favorite."

Pepper touched the button for the common floor. "Training bodyguards, Maria? Isn't that boring after working with SHIELD?"

"Actually, it's downtime."

"Downtime?" Pepper was certain her expression mirrored Cardona's stare, only without, she hoped, the open mouth.

"Compared to juggling international laws, negotiating ingress and egress agreements with nations that still think women are less than cattle, and keeping up with every incarnation of the Iron Man armor? _Yes_."

"Why are you keeping up with every incarnation of the Iron Man armor?" Pepper asked.

"If we get into that, I'll need more than a nightcap."

"Remember Tony built and stocked the tower. I'm sure more than a nightcap won't be a problem."

The doors slid open, and Pepper saw they weren't the only ones who had chosen the common floor. Steve, Natasha, and Bucky were seated in one of the conversation areas and looked up as she and Maria stepped onto the floor.

Bucky gave her a smile that was almost sinfully flirtatious, and Pepper felt herself blushing.

"Barnes?" Cardona's voice cut through the room. "Fraternizing is against regs."

Bucky looked back at Steve. "Some things never change, even after seventy-odd years."

Steve grinned briefly. "It was your idea not to tell them."

"Tell who what?" Cardona demanded. "Never mind, you can explain yourself on your disciplinary action form. I put up with your sass because you're good, but I can't overlook fraternization."

"Sass?" Steve asked. "You sassed a superior?"

"No more than I ever sassed you," Bucky said.

Pepper bit her lip, considering the situation. Anything she said could be construed as favoritism, and she couldn't taint Bucky's work that way. She glanced at Maria, hoping the other woman might step in. Maria met her gaze, gave a minute shake of her head. Pepper understood. This wasn't their decision to make.

Steve was just looking at Bucky, his expression carefully neutral. Bucky met his gaze, but after a half-second, gave an exaggerated sigh. "Will you ever stop being right?"

Steve smirked and Bucky rose, turning to face Cardona. "I'm not a bodyguard."

Cardona frowned. "You've been on my staff for a month, been on a dozen assignments, and you're not a bodyguard?"

"I'm an Avenger."

Pepper watched understanding spread across Cardona's face, from the initial _what do you mean you're an Avenger?_ through _if you are an Avenger, which one are you_ , followed quickly by, _sitting next to Captain America and chatting like old friends_ , which led finally into _oh, shit, that's the Winter Soldier_.

That the Winter Soldier was actually Bucky Barnes, Captain America's best friend who'd (apparently) died during World War II, wasn't common knowledge, Pepper knew, but the Captain and the Soldier had appeared together several times, both mission-related and otherwise, and their apparent friendship was quickly remarked on in the tabloids and the mainstream press.

"You were pretending to be a bodyguard," Cardona said, his expression thoughtful. "Do the Avengers have reason to fear for Ms. Potts' life?"

Bucky just looked at him.

Cardona had the grace to look abashed. "Above my pay grade."

"Something like that," Bucky said.

"Then I'll be on my way. I doubt," he added to Pepper, "you need me with them here."

"Thank you for everything, Mr. Cardona," Pepper told him.

The elevator doors closed behind Cardona, and Pepper said, "Maria and I were going to have a nightcap."

"You might want something stiffer," Natasha said.

Pepper paused on her way to the wet bar. "Why?"

Bucky countered with a question of his own. "What made you ask Cardona about the Mandarin yesterday?"

Pepper gave a slight shrug as she poured two glasses of red wine, offered one to Maria. "It wasn't that long ago, and it feels … wrong."

"Wrong how?" Bucky asked.

Pepper came to sit on the sofa beside him, across from Steve and Natasha, while Maria took a single chair at the end of the grouping to Bucky's right. Bucky waited while Pepper sipped her wine, her expression thoughtful.

"I understand using an actor as a decoy," she said after a moment. "But why would Aldrich Killian choose the name of a medieval terrorist?"

"Misdirection," Maria suggested. "To send anyone investigating him looking in all the wrong places."

But Pepper was shaking her head. "More to the point, why would Aldrich Killian know the name of a medieval terrorist? But why are you asking?"

Bucky offered her a grim smile. "I said your gut's worth trusting. Turns out it was dead on. Take a look at this."

He pulled a photo from a manila folder on the coffee table and offered it to her. Pepper glanced at the image on it – a photograph of a tattoo comprised of ten rings joined in a larger circle – and started so sharply she almost spilled her wine.

"The Ten Rings," she said.

"You know about them?" Steve and Maria echoed.

"Of course," Pepper said. "It was a Ten Rings cell that kidnapped Tony. The first powered armor he built was to escape from them."

"And it was a Ten Rings cell that helped fund Ivan Vanko and get him to Monaco," Natasha added.

Pepper turned a puzzled glance toward Natasha, and she shrugged. "I thought you knew."

"I didn't. But what does the Mandarin have to do with the Ten Rings?"

"Legend says he was the founder of the original Ten Rings group," Bucky answered. "Which may or may not be the parent of the Ten Rings operating today."

"So you think the Ten Rings was behind the shooting yesterday?" Pepper asked slowly, trying to think through the implications.

"I think it's worth looking into," Bucky said. "Not that Stark hasn't made other enemies, but this one has a vested interest in him and you."

"Why?" Pepper asked, and the answer arrived as soon as the question left her mouth. "The Extremis."

"You're the only one who survived it," Natasha agreed.

"Thanks to Tony," Pepper had to point out.

"He's a hard target," Maria said, and Pepper gave her a puzzled frown. "It means he's not as vulnerable. He always has the armor, or some other techno-surprise, at hand. And he's a glory hound, so there's almost always media around. Taking him would be more difficult than taking you."

Maria meant it only as a statement of fact, Pepper knew, but for someone who'd made a career of being in control, the words hit her hard. _I'm vulnerable. I'm an easy target._

Bucky glanced sharply at her, and she wondered if his enhanced senses had picked up on her rapid pulse.

"So what now?" Pepper was glad that her voice remained steady when she asked the question.

She wasn't surprised when the others deferred to Steve for the plan.

"Now," he said, "we'll use the resources we have – Tasha, Maria – to find out what we can about the current Ten Rings organization, and how Killian was involved, if he was."

"I have resources, too," Bucky said.

"You took out a lot of Hydra bases," Steve pointed out. "The ones that're left won't necessarily welcome you with open arms."

"That it was me isn't widely known," Bucky countered. "And I know their communications and contacts – some of them, anyway. Whatever they know, I'll know."

Pepper shivered at the certainty in his tone, uncertain whether it resulted from concern for what he'd have to do, or a primal sense of proud satisfaction that he would do whatever it took to keep her safe, no matter the cost to himself.

She'd never experienced a feeling like that before - not least because Tony Stark had come lately and not completely to that kind of, yes, heroism, and even less because she'd always been the type to rescue herself – and she took a moment to examine and savor it.

"All right," Steve agreed, bringing her back to the moment. "Let us know what you find."

#

An hour later, Bucky bid goodnight to Steve as his oldest friend went to bed, leaving him alone with Pepper. Maria and Natasha had retired earlier, the first claiming an early morning meeting, the second just giving them a sidelong, not quite sultry, smile before slinking out the door.

After Steve left, Bucky didn't feel a need to jump into conversation, which surprised him. He'd always been naturally glib, and that gift had brought a number of women to his arms and his bed before the war. Now, though, it felt right to be quiet with the woman who mattered most – his soulmate – his soulmate who was now leaning back against the sofa, her eyes closed, and holding a mostly-empty wineglass lightly against her thigh.

 _Wouldn't have figured her for the kind to get passing-out drunk._ Bucky sat forward carefully, reaching across with his human hand to gently pry the glass free.

"Not done yet," Pepper murmured, clutching the glass more tightly.

"You sure? You looked like you passed out."

Pepper chuckled and turned to look at him. "It'll take more than a couple of glasses of wine to make me pass out. I'm just relaxed."

"Relaxed, huh?" Bucky couldn't help the skepticism in his question. "With the possibility there's a terrorist organization out to get you?"

"Because you'll stop them. We'll stop them," she corrected herself, but Bucky thought the correction came automatically, not from any real desire to take up arms herself.

And he would be taking up arms, that much was certain. It was only a matter of when and where – when they found the Ten Rings or the Mandarin, and where they'd holed up. Then he would gladly become the asset once more for the most important, most personal, mission he'd ever undertaken.

First, though, he had to find them.

"I'll have to leave."

He hadn't meant to say it so baldly, and Pepper sat up, plunking her glass on the coffee table, the ease in her expression suddenly replaced by anxiety. "Leave?"

"Just for a while," Bucky told her. "My sources won't necessarily respond to an email or a phone call from someone they can't identify."

"Just promise you'll come back."

It was an easy promise to make. "I'll always come back to you."

Pepper searched his expression. He had no idea what she was looking for, so all he could do was be as open as he knew how to be – not as open as before he'd become the asset, but hopefully open enough.

Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, because the next thing he knew, Pepper was lunging forward, her mouth seeking his, finding it. Bucky wrapped his arms around her as she assaulted his mouth.

Bucky only thought he'd been aroused the last time they'd kissed. Then, he'd been the aggressor, though he'd tried to be a gentleman about it. Now, she was the aggressor, and for a woman who presented such a ladylike, almost prim, exterior, the way her lips and tongue teased his sent fiery bolts of lust straight to his groin.

He growled against her mouth and was rewarded when her nails dug into his shoulder. His cock jumped in response, and he hauled her off the sofa into his lap. She landed in an awkward sprawl, but she was laughing while she adjusted her position.

That moment let him recover just enough to ask, "You sure you wanna do this here? However much this might be?"

Pepper was still a little breathless when she answered. "How much do you want this to be?"

Bucky chuckled. "Don't give a guy that decision, doll. For us the answer's always, as much as you'll let it be."

"Enough that you won't dare not come back."

The words surprised her as much as they did him, judging by the way her eyes widened, then dropped so she wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Where'd that come from?" Bucky asked gently. She just shook her head, and Bucky bit back a growl – of frustration, this time, not desire.

Pepper was strong, mentally as much as physically, confident and capable. He'd already promised he'd come back. Why would she doubt him? Then her words from yesterday came back to him.

 _"I won't put up with you playing around on me. I had enough of that with Tony."_

"Pepper." Bucky rested his metal hand against her cheek, felt and heard her hiss of breath when cool metal touched warm flesh. Still, she kept her gaze fixed somewhere around his navel. "Look at me, doll. Please."

She gave a shuddering sigh, then, finally, raised her eyes.

"I am not Tony Stark," Bucky told her.

"I know you're not."

"Then stop treating me like I am."

Once again, she looked away, but this time her expression was more thoughtful than ashamed. Bucky let her have the silence she appeared to need, stroking her cheek with his mechanical thumb unconsciously.

"We spent a lot of time together," Pepper said finally. "Even before we were lovers, we were friends. He's still one of my best friends."

Bucky made a non-committal, encouraging sound, to let her know he was listening, even if he couldn't predict what she was going to say next.

"I was always there for him. Whatever he needed, I got it for him, sometimes before he even realized he needed it." Pepper shook her head. "Whenever he had a night with some starlet, or reporter, or anyone, I was there to clean up after him."

"Not while you were with him."

Pepper shrugged. "Tony's Tony. I thought I knew what that meant, after all those years, and I knew it wasn't forever, not when we didn't have each other's words." She shook her head again. "I didn't realize it had hurt so much."

"Oh, honey." Bucky cradled her against his chest, even as the asset was cataloging ways to kill Stark and dispose of the remains. The Hudson River was close, convenient, deep and dark – but maybe too obvious.

Pepper wasn't crying, but her voice was unsteady when she said, "Sorry I ruined the mood."

"I'm glad you did."

Pepper jerked back to frown at him. "How can you be glad?"

"Because when we bond, I want you to be sure that's what you want, not what you're jumping into because some asshole hurt you."

"Tony's not –"

"Yes, he is. He can't help it, it runs in his family."

"We'll agree to disagree," Pepper said. "Agreeably."

"If you insist."


	7. Chapter 7

Of long necessity, Pepper was an early riser. Tony wasn't, and she'd put the earliest hours to good use before Tony would wake, sometimes cranky, and she'd have to let her own work take a back seat to Tony's needs.

This morning, she came to the common room for breakfast and found that Bucky and Natasha had already been gone an hour.

"Russia," Steve said in answer to her unasked question, a fork with scrambled eggs and bacon on it paused midway to his mouth. "Bucky's dropping her in St. Petersburg before going on to Novgorod."

"I hate feeling useless."

Watching Steve eat reminded Pepper that she should have breakfast, too. It was at least something to do while she waited for … something. News from Bucky or Natasha, in the best case, or another attempt on her life in the worst.

"Useless?" Steve prompted, and Pepper gave a one-shoulder shrug as she crossed to the fridge.

"They're off in Russia, Maria's working on it from here, and I'm doing nothing to help. I don't like it." She opened the fridge, surveyed its contents. No leftovers this time, so she gathered yogurt and berries and set them on the counter.

"They also serve who only stand and wait," Steve quoted. If Pepper hadn't known Steve Rogers was incapable of being rude, she would've sworn he'd spoken around a mouthful of food.

"I've never been good at waiting." Pepper scooped yogurt into a bowl, scattered raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries over it.

"You'd rather speed and post o'er land and ocean without rest? Yes, I know the poem."

"I don't know what I'd rather do." Pepper brought her breakfast to the table, sat across from Steve, and spooned a few berries into her mouth.

"Look at it another way. What _don't_ you want to do?"

"I don't want to be killed by a terrorist assassin." The words were out before she thought. What was it about super-soldiers that made her such a blabbermouth?

"That's a good goal." To his credit, Steve didn't sound amused or, worse, patronizing. "How do you go about reaching it?"

"I don't know what I can do," Pepper said. "I have to rely on bodyguards, and Avengers, and -"

She stopped, at least this once, before she blurted something even more embarrassing.

Steve's mouth twitched, just a little. "And that annoys the spit out of you."

Who needed to blurt, when Steve Rogers could apparently read minds? Pepper sighed and set her spoon aside. "What Maria said last night, that Tony's a hard target. It made me realize I'm an easy target."

"Soft target," Steve murmured.

"I don't want to be," Pepper said. "I don't want to be the damsel in distress."

"You wouldn't be," Steve said.

"I have been."

But Steve was shaking his head. "You were kidnapped, yes, but you did everything you could once that happened."

"You weren't there."

"No, but I've gotten to know you a little bit, and I'll bet you were sassing him the whole time, and looking for ways to escape. That's not a damsel in distress."

"Still, I'm an easy - soft - target, and I don't know how not to be."

Steve regarded her for a long moment, then something in his expression shifted, and he wasn't just Steve sharing breakfast with her, he was Captain America. "Nobody can stop a sniper's bullet. But I can help you be harder to kidnap."

"You mean teach me self-defense? I had some lessons, before." _And still relied on someone else to rescue me._

"This century always uses too many syllables," Steve observed. "No, I'm not going to teach you _self-defense_. I'll teach you to _fight_. It'll be hard, and it'll take time, but at the end of it, you'll be a hard target." He paused, a slight grin spreading across his features. "In a different way than Tony."

Pepper chuckled at that, but she was considering his offer. It was a natural outgrowth of the conversation she'd had with Bucky that first night - knowing what she could do would lead to her doing more than she had before. In this case, doing meant defending hers- _fighting for her life_.

And that was what she hadn't wanted to admit before. She hadn't wanted to admit that she might have to fight for her life - she lived in the twenty-first century, after all, and it was supposed to be a civilized place.

 _Maybe it is, but that doesn't mean all the people in it are._

"Yes. I want to learn."

"It'll be rough," Steve warned her. "I won't go easy on you because you're a woman, or because you're Tony's friend, or because you're Bucky's soulmate."

"You shouldn't," Pepper agreed. "And I don't want you to."

"Then I'll see you in the gym at seven."

#

 _Steve would love Novgorod,_ Bucky decided. _An artist's dream. All medieval on the one hand, and all modern on the other._

Then he winced. That comparison could as easily describe him, with one hand flesh and blood and the other cybernetic, and he was certainly not an artist's dream. Nightmare, perhaps, but not a dream.

Bucky put those thoughts aside, focusing instead on putting one foot in front of the other as he crossed the footbridge over the Volkhov River from the Sophia Side of the city to the Trade Side.

The city had grown since the last time he was here - whenever that had actually been - but still he found his way past too many churches and cathedrals to name, though his mind supplied him the names: Transfiguration of Our Savior, Philip the Apostle, Nicholas the Wonder-Worker, and others.

Then he'd passed through the tourist section of the Trade Side into the more modern area where people lived and worked, played and drank, and then deeper into the areas where respectable people wouldn't go.

Here, Bucky would find the _russkaya mafiya,_ the _bratva_. They weren't terrorists themselves, but they knew everything that happened within their territory. The Novgorod _bratva_ might not have much reach, but they could contact other groups, and some of those groups had worldwide influence. If anyone could get him a lead on the Ten Rings or the Mandarin, it would be the _bratva_.

Finding a prostitute was easy. Persuading her to take him to her pimp cost less than Tony Stark would spend on alcohol in an hour. Bucky was careful to show only his flesh hand when he paid her.

The pimp, however, proved surprisingly unwilling to introduce Bucky to his _avtoritet._ Instead, he screamed for a _krysha,_ the enforcers that were never far away. The _krysha_ who responded stood several inches over six feet and brandished a crowbar.

" _Vy ne khotite chtoby sdelat' eto_ ," Bucky told him, his hands stuffed in the pockets of the hoodie he wore.

Apparently the man did, in fact, want to do that - he rushed toward Bucky. Bucky ducked under the man's swing.

" _Neuklyuzhiy_ ," Bucky told him. "Very clumsy."

The man swung again, and this time Bucky caught the crowbar in his metal hand. He held fast as the _krysha_ struggled to wrest the crowbar away. Then the light caught on the metal hand and the _krysha_ blanched. The asset gave a satisfied smile.

" _YA khochu , chtoby uvidet' sovetnika_ ," Bucky said.

The _krysha_ still stared at Bucky's hand. " _Bozhe moy._ "

"God's not here," Bucky said. "I am. I said, I want to see your _sovetnika._ Don't make me say it again, English or Russian."

"He'll kill me."

"You know who I am, and what I've done. Do you want me to do it again?"

Finally, the _krysha_ let go of the crowbar. Bucky tossed it aside.

"I will have to call him," the _krysha_ said.

"Fine. But if I have the barest reason to suspect you might be _thinking_ of trying something funny, I will tear your heart out through your throat." Bucky let the fingers of his metal hand clench, as if anticipating that very action.

"No tricks, nothing funny, I swear."

"I hope your word is good. For your sake."


	8. Chapter 8

When Pepper woke the next morning, she hurt.

Steve had been true to his word last night - _as if Captain America would ever_ not _be true to his word_ \- and worked her hard during their training session.

"We're focusing on the basics," he'd said, "because even the basics can save your life."

Then he'd focused on four drills. He'd repeated them dozens, maybe hundreds, of times each.

"You need to build muscle memory," he explained. "In a fight, you don't have time to think about what you're going to do. You have to just do it. We're going to do the same drills until you can do them instinctively, however long that takes."

Steve finally called a halt after three hours, and Pepper had staggered to the elevator and then to her apartment, where she'd fallen asleep with cold-packs covering most of her body.

 _Not that they helped much_ , she thought wryly as she headed toward the bathroom for the shower she'd forgotten to take the night before. _Or maybe they did, and I'd be hurting a_ lot _more if I hadn't used them._

After a breakfast of a three-egg-and-cheese omelet ("Protein helps the muscles recover," Steve had said) with a chaser of double-strength painkillers ("Painkillers help Pepper stay human"), Pepper finally felt able to start her day.

It certainly wasn't her best day - she'd have to apologize to the intern she'd unintentionally brought to tears - but Pepper got through it on sheer determination, a steady diet of painkillers, and ice packs in the back and seat of her chair.

Finally, the day was over. Pepper had just enough time for dinner - a very light dinner, on the assumption that Steve would work her as hard tonight as he had last night - before she reported to the gym for more torture-training.

 _You chose this, remember_ , she told herself as she changed into workout gear. _You chose to be a hard target, so you'll do the work it takes to become one._

Steve was, of course, already in the gym when she arrived. He noted how slowly, carefully, she was moving, gave her a sympathetic grin. "Sore?"

"Very."

Steve's grin widened. "It'll be worse tomorrow."

Pepper groaned, and Steve just said, "C'mon."

Pepper willed herself to stand straighter - something about Steve inspired that, even when he wasn't in the stars-and-stripes uniform - and stepped onto the mat.

She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not when he focused on the same drills again. Pepper might not have to think, much, about what she was doing, but it hurt when she did it.

Steve called a halt after an hour. "That's enough for tonight. I'm here to train you, not work you to death."

"Is there a difference?" Pepper asked.

Steve chuckled. "Yeah. Bucky won't kill me for training you."

He crossed to a refrigerator set into the wall, withdrew two bottles of water, and passed one to Pepper. "Drink up."

Pepper downed half the bottle in one long swallow, the cold water refreshing after a sweaty workout.

"Captain Rogers." JARVIS's voice came from everywhere and nowhere, as usual. "Sergeant Barnes is calling."

"Where's the nearest phone?" Steve asked.

"I can route it here, sir," JARVIS said. "There's a screen above the refrigeration unit."

"Thanks, JARVIS."

Steve put a hand to Pepper's back, guided her to face the screen with him. It was an unconscious, old-fashioned mannerism, she knew, and for that she didn't resist.

Still, facing Bucky looking as sweaty and disheveled as she did now wasn't how she would like to greet him after his trip. She'd have to make up for it when he came home.

"Buck," Steve said as the image on the screen came into focus. "Nat."

They looked tired, Pepper thought, and no wonder. It was after eight p.m. here, so it must be two or three in the morning wherever they were. But Bucky still managed to smile a greeting to her. Then his eyebrows lifted as he took in Pepper's appearance.

"Working out?" he asked.

"Training," Steve answered.

Bucky appeared to take that in stride. "Then we've all had a productive day. Natalia?"

"I visited some old friends," Natasha said. "They said that Ten Rings is officially defunct."

"Officially?" Pepper asked. "What about unofficially?"

"Unofficially, there have been activities along the Mongolian and Chinese borders lately that suggest a new group is active in the area. They've heard rumors of a new _pakhan_ \- like a Mafia godfather - taking over there."

"My sources in the Novgorod _bratva_ agreed," Bucky added. "They've been sending tribute to someone in Novosibirsk to secure passage on the various railways."

"Passage?" Steve asked. "For what?"

"Everything," Bucky replied. "People, materiel, drugs."

"It's safe to say the _bratva_ \- Russian mafia," Natasha clarified, and Pepper nodded acknowledgement of the information, "are not happy to be paying tribute to anyone other than their own _pakhan_."

Steve was nodding, as though all of that made sense to him, but Pepper could only frown. "How's that productive? It sounds like rumor piled on rumor."

"Where are you now?" Steve asked.

"Yekaterinburg," Bucky answered. "We'll hop to Novosibirsk in the morning and see what else we can find out."

"Let us know if you need anything," Steve said.

"We will," Natasha said. Then she spoke softly in what Pepper assumed was Russian. Bucky scowled at her, but she ignored it, instead giving Steve and Pepper a small smile. "Good night."

"Night, Tasha," Steve said, and Pepper echoed it, suddenly uncertain what to do or say now. The decision was taken out of her hands when Steve added, "Sleep well, Buck."

"Yeah, you too," Bucky replied, but Steve was already halfway to the door. Then Bucky's gaze was fixed on her, and he was smiling. "Hey, doll."

"Hey, yourself." Pepper returned his smile. "Is it just me, or is Natasha not as subtle as her reputation suggests?"

Bucky shook his head, grinning. "She's got no reason to be now. She knows we're soulmates, and new ones at that. So she's giving us privacy." Then he looked around the cockpit of the quinjet they'd taken. "As much as we can be private from half a world away."

"And with her probably not even fifteen feet away," Pepper murmured. Even as a child, she'd never cried in front of anyone else. Her work with Stark Industries had only reinforced the tendency of keeping her emotions carefully shielded. This conversation was guaranteed to be awkward, as a result.

But to her surprise, Bucky looked abashed. "Further than that."

"Pardon?"

"What she said -" was he actually blushing? Pepper thought that was her job "- before she left. She said she'd see me in the morning."

Pepper knew she was staring at him through the screen. She could only hope her mouth hadn't gaped open like a fish, as well - and then she swallowed, or tried to, and found that it had. "Very unsubtle."

"How can anyone have a real conversation over the phone?" Bucky asked. "Video or otherwise. I hated even using the radio, during the war. Had to, of course, but it was only for reports and checking in."

"I don't think she had conversation in mind." Pepper was going to have to talk to Bruce, or anyone in the biosciences department, really, about developing something to inhibit a blush. That particular shade of red would never be her color.

And that shade wouldn't be fading anytime soon, not with Bucky's gaze locked on her, cameras and viewscreens be damned. "What did she have in mind?"

Pepper swallowed. Her own fault, for bringing it up - even if she hadn't really meant for Bucky to hear her (damned enhanced senses). Or had she, subconsciously? It would take a team of therapists to figure that one out, she decided - and then realized that Bucky was still looking at her, waiting for an answer to his question.

 _Play ball or go home_ , she thought, and straightened her shoulders. "I could show you my soulmark."

Pepper's words brought Bucky's full attention onto her, and maybe it was just the lighting in the quinjet where he sat, but she would swear his eyes had gone dark.

"Is that what they call it these days?" Bucky asked, and the gravel in his tone just made it flirtier.

"Maybe." It had been a long time since she'd flirted, since she'd had to. Bucky was bringing the instincts back. "So, wanna see my soulmark, Sergeant?"

Bucky just nodded, his gaze still fixed on her. Pepper smiled at him, reached behind her back and peeled off the artificial skin at the base of her spine. Then she turned away, offering Bucky her back, dropped her workout shorts enough to reveal the scrawl on her back.

"Beautiful." Bucky's voice was still gravelly. "Except for that ugly scrawl."

"No, it's beautiful." Pepper looked back over her shoulder at him. "It's beautiful, because you are."

"Need to get your eyes checked, doll," Bucky said. Then, "Bonding's going to be interesting."

"Why's that?" Pepper asked, turning back to face him.

"'Cause my soulmark's in the same place, and I'm not that … flexible."

"I'm … glad?"

Bucky laughed. "Me, too." Then his expression shifted. "Anything else you wanna show me?"

"Oh, lots." Pepper smiled. "Unless you'd rather see it in person?"

"Don't always get our druthers, especially not now, half a world apart." Bucky's grin faded into a scowl. "Flirting's not as much fun over the screen."

"Some people might do a lot more than flirting."

"Even less fun over the screen," Bucky declared.

"Then … you'd rather not?"

"It feels cheap and trashy, and you're neither of those things." He paused. "Unless you really want to?"

Pepper stepped closer to the screen. "I appreciate Natasha's discretion, but even showing you my soulmark felt…uncomfortable. We should have been together for it."

"Yeah." Bucky reached out, put his fingers on the screen. "Not with this between us."

Pepper touched her fingers to her screen over his. "Something to look forward to."

"I'll call tomorrow," he said. "Let you know what we find."

"Call my cell. I'm heading overseas tomorrow for some meetings."

Bucky leaned forward, eyebrows knitting in concern. "Where?"

"Sofia. I'm meeting with the minister of the economy and the minister of information technology, and also with several business leaders."

"Bulgaria's stable," Bucky said, and Pepper thought he looked relieved. "Sounds like a busy trip, though."

"If we can come to an agreement, it'll be worth every minute," Pepper said. "Tony – and Obadiah Stane before him – focused on weapons to the exclusion of all else for a long time. It's only recently that we've started looking at energy production and biosciences for expansion. With nanotechnology and new research into telomeres, the sky's the limit, and Bulgaria's been wanting to increase their investments into science and technology, so it looks like a good fit… I'm boring you, aren't I?"

"I don't understand half of what you're saying," Bucky grinned at her, "but watching you be excited about it is fun."

Pepper shook her head, laughing. "You have an interesting definition of fun."

"I'll have a better one when we're together."

Pepper shivered at the promise in his tone. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Be careful," Bucky added. "Bulgaria may be stable, but that doesn't mean it's safe."

"Cardona said he was overseeing this trip personally," Pepper said.

"Good man," Bucky said. "Reminds me of my drill sergeant."

"I hope that was a compliment."

"It was. Mostly." He studied her for a long moment, as though memorizing her. "Get some sleep, doll. I'll call tomorrow."

The screen went dark before Pepper could reply and she chuckled to herself. _I suppose that's better than you-hang-up-no-you-hang-up cuteness._

#

Sofia had everything Pepper loved about Europe – the ancient butting up against the modern, a richness and depth of history that the United States just couldn't match, medium-sized cities rather than megalopolises that forced too many people into too-crowded conditions. Even spending a very long day in meetings with very verbose and somewhat chauvinistic business leaders couldn't dampen her enthusiasm at her surroundings, especially now that those meetings were over and she had the evening free.

Pepper spared a moment to wish that her soulmate could be with her, but both of them understood duty. Still, she had Bucky's call to look forward to later, and that would have to be enough for now.

Well, that and dinner. She'd made reservations at Tavast, a rooftop restaurant that claimed the best views both of the city and of Vitosha Mountain. The evening was still warm enough that she'd probably eat on the terrace, Pepper decided, and she'd skip catching up on her email long enough to enjoy the meal.

Cardona opened the door of her hired car, and she gave a smile as she climbed inside. He closed the door, then slipped into the front seat beside the driver and gave him the destination.

Just because she'd sworn off email while she was having dinner didn't mean she couldn't catch up on the ride to dinner, Pepper decided, and pulled out her StarkPhone to call up her most recent emails.

A turn that brought the car into sudden dimness made her look up. After a moment's reorientation, she realized they were driving into a parking garage.

"I didn't know Tavast had a parking garage," she said.

Cardona turned to face her, and she saw regret in his expression. "It doesn't."

"Then where are –" Pepper broke off when she saw the aerosol can Cardona extended toward her, his arm awkwardly bent over the seat back. "What's that?"

"Sorry, Ms. Potts," Cardona said, then pressed the nozzle.

Pepper jerked back, but the spray covered her mouth and nose anyway. "What are you …?"

Pepper tried to wipe the liquid from her face, then realized that she felt tired. What had he sprayed her with? She jerked at the door handle, but it was secured from the inside.

Cardona sprayed more into her face, and then she was struggling to keep her eyes open, to open a new text message on her phone, anything other than succumb to the darkness that beckoned her.

"Do you think that's too much?" Cardona asked.

"She has Extremis in her system," the driver replied in heavily accented English. "Spray her again."

Cardona did, and Pepper's world went dark.


	9. Chapter 9

Natasha had chosen Ivan's, a bar in the middle of Novosibirsk, as their meeting place. Bucky found it easily, and went inside. He paused inside the door to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim interior light. Unlike in the States or some of the more tourist-oriented cities, no neon signs illuminated the interior, only a few lamps along the walls.

Of course the bar itself was the dimmest area, the better for the bartenders to water down the drinks without the customers noticing. Bucky ordered vodka, not surprised when it turned out to be a local brand unavailable outside Russia, and found a table that offered a decent view of the bar, especially the door.

At half past seven, the bar was doing a brisk business mostly from factory workers stopping off for a drink or three before heading home to their families. It was an easy place to blend in, Bucky decided, and sat back in his chair. He sipped the vodka, savoring the cool burn down his throat as he swallowed.

He could only hope Natasha had been more successful in their search for the Mandarin, or even the Ten Rings, than he had. He'd scoured the local underworld for _bratva_ officers, found a couple, but they proved to be as ignorant as he was feeling. He'd moved on to the riverfront.

The Ob River hadn't been a significant official transportation route for more than a century, but Bucky was willing to bet that a lot of unofficial merchandise still floated down to the Gulf of Ob, then to the Kara Sea, the Barents Sea, and beyond. It probably did, but those who moved it either didn't know anything or, less likely, kept their mouths shut despite the asset's interrogation techniques.

All in all, a very disappointing day – but one that would get better when he called Pepper later. Bucky might not be one for long telephone conversations, but just the sight of her on the other end of the electronic connection would lift his spirits. He was looking forward to it.

He was halfway through his drink, now approaching room temperature, when he saw a flash of red – Natalia's hair – through the smoky room. He downed the last of his vodka and signaled the bartender for two more.

Natalia – no, Natasha, and he really had to remember that, even if she never objected – threaded her way through the crowd with a grace a ballet dancer would envy. She saw him and turned toward him, only to be caught up short by a man grabbing her arm.

 _That was stupid._ Bucky just wished he had some popcorn.

Even his enhanced senses couldn't make out their words over the din of conversation and loud music, but Bucky could read her expression well enough. It went from a distant politeness to amusement, and then in the space between heartbeats shifted to _I'm trying to think of a reason not to kill you._

Yep, he definitely wanted popcorn.

With a subtle move almost too quick for him to follow, Natalia dislocated the man's shoulder and then left him howling in pain and continued through the room.

Bucky slid one of the drinks toward her as she sat down. "Thanks for not killing him."

"Steve would be upset by the bad publicity if I did."

"Yeah, I've been on the receiving end of his _I'm disappointed in you_ expression a couple of times." Bucky shook his head ruefully, then picked up his glass. "Nicely done."

Natasha raised her own, and then, with a wicked glint in her eye, knocked back the entire drink in one swallow.

Bucky rolled his eyes before following suit. He put his glass down and gave her a steady look. "You do know I can't get drunk, right?"

Natasha shrugged, and Bucky signaled for two more.

"Anything?" he asked.

"Someone called the Mandarin was the subject of a lot of gossip a few months back."

"The Killian incident?"

"A little before. _Spasibo_ ," she added to the waitress who brought their drinks. "The best rumors these days are that he's still in the area, just staying quiet. More stones to turn over, hoping for scorpions."

Bucky grunted an acknowledgment. He'd known even before they left New York that this would be hunting for a needle in a haystack, but he'd do it, and lots more, to keep Pepper safe. He was still surprised that Natasha had come with him, given that her memories of Russia couldn't be any better than his of Germany.

He took another swallow of vodka, aware of Natasha's eyes on him even as he kept an eye on the table where she'd left a man with a dislocated shoulder. These men weren't the type to let that lie. He shifted his gaze away from them long enough to give her a sidelong glance. "What?"

"If I'd known it was a wasted effort, I wouldn't have slept outside the quinjet last night."

"If you'd asked, I would've told you."

She looked skeptical. "You would've?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"1940's morals?"

"Were a lot more variable than people think nowadays. I'm never going to share everything with everyone, but a friend? Sure."

"Are we friends?"

The question surprised him, and then he thought it shouldn't. Bucky took another swallow of vodka while he considered his answer. At the other table, the man with the dislocated shoulder had stopped yowling and was looking angry.

"Maybe not," Bucky said finally. "But we're teammates. And Steve trusts you. And you wouldn't have been asking out of prurient motives."

"Nobody uses words like _prurient_ much anymore."

"It's a good word. We should go." He knocked back the last of his vodka, watched her do the same, and then rose, dropping enough rubles on the table to cover their tab.

He led the way through the crowd, not obviously avoiding the injured man's table but not heading directly for it, either. Just when he thought they'd slip out without incident, a beefy man with all the subtlety of a shotgun planted himself in front of them.

"Step aside," Bucky said, the Russian coming more easily after two days of speaking nothing but. "No one else has to get hurt."

"Except you and your little bitch there," the man replied. "She hurt Leonid."

"He grabbed me," Natasha said. "What did you think would happen?"

That seemed to confuse Beefy. There might still be a chance to get out of this without more of an incident, Bucky decided.

"Tell you what," he said, "I'll relocate Leonid's shoulder, Natalia will apologize, and we'll buy the next round."

Leonid looked up. "You can fix my shoulder."

" _Da_." Bucky moved closer, extending his flesh hand in a questioning manner. Leonid hesitated briefly, then nodded.

"Do it."

Bucky positioned himself behind Leonid, and a minute later, Leonid yelped as his shoulder went back into its socket.

"Ice it," Bucky told him. "It'll feel better tomorrow."

Beefy scowled. "You said you'd buy the next round."

"I did." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of rubles, counted off enough to buy two rounds.

He started to put the remaining bills back into his pocket, but Beefy's hand closed over his.

"We drink a lot," Beefy said.

"Remove your hand," Bucky told him. "Or I'll shatter it."

Beefy looked startled by the threat, and then laughed. Bucky smiled with him. Beefy probably figured that since he outmassed Bucky by a good twenty kilos, he'd win the fight.

"You want me to move my hand? Drop the money."

Bucky didn't plan to fight. He withdrew his other hand, the metal one, from the pocket of his hoodie, rested it over Beefy's hand, then squeezed.

"I said I'd shatter it," Bucky said. "You should be feeling the pressure by now, the muscles constricting around the bones, the bones moving toward each other …"

" _Bozhe moy_." Leonid's exclamation was little more than a breath, just enough to be heard over the din. " _Zima Soldat_."

A working-class bar in Novosibirsk wasn't the last place Bucky expected to be recognized, but it certainly wasn't in the top ten, or even the top thousand, places he might have expected it.

"You know me?" Bucky asked.

"Of you," Leonid corrected. "I was KGB when I was younger. Please don't break Viktor's hand. He's a good man."

Bucky released the other man, even though he wasn't certain he agreed with Leonid's opinion. Beefy – Viktor – backed away, rubbing his hand to restore the circulation.

"What are you doing here?" Leonid asked.

"Looking for a man called the Mandarin," Natasha answered. "Or his organization, the Ten Rings. Know of them?"

"I have heard things," Leonid said. "They are coming back, as the Americans say. Starting small, but serious."

"Do you know where we can find them?" Bucky asked.

Leonid shook his head. "I have heard rumors they want to build an empire from the Black Sea to the Baltic. I still have contacts in Moscow, and I can ask what they've heard."

If what Leonid said were true, they'd been searching a few hundred miles too far east. If. But this might be their best chance for solid information. Bucky glanced at Natasha. She gave a minute shrug, leaving the decision to him. It was no choice, really – if this man's contacts had information that could keep Pepper safe, Bucky would use him.

"Tell me your telephone number," Bucky instructed.

Leonid recited a string of numbers, and Bucky repeated them, committing them to memory. "I will call tomorrow night."

Leonid shook his head. "If I were still KGB, I would ask what they have done to earn your interest. But I am not, and I no longer wish to know such things."

"Probably wise," Natasha muttered.

Leonid grinned suddenly. "Not only have I faced _Zima Soldat_ and lived, but he bought me a drink."

"Probably wise not to tell that story too often," Natasha said.

"No one would believe me if I did," Leonid said.

#

Bucky let Natasha guide them back to the hidden quinjet, the conversation with Leonid heavy in his thoughts. He'd known the Winter Soldier hadn't worked for the good guys, but having it confirmed in person, by someone who wasn't one of his handlers, made it more real somehow.

"It's not on you." Natasha's simple declaration cut through his reverie.

"What's not?"

"Whatever it is that has you brooding so much. Did you pick up the habit from Steve, or he from you? Or maybe it's a trait all you Brooklyn boys share?"

Bucky didn't respond to her attempt at humor. "I didn't know what I was doing. That doesn't make it any less wrong."

"The actions, no. Your culpability, yes. Legally, even morally, you can't be held responsible for any of it. It wasn't your choice."

"I know that. I'm just having trouble believing it." It was true as far as it went, Bucky thought. He just wasn't willing to share more with her - with anyone, really. Not even Steve. Not even Pepper.

Pepper. His soulmate. Beautiful, intelligent, strong Pepper. How had God seen fit to bind someone like her to someone like him? Even if he didn't bear responsibility for all of his actions, he knew he wasn't anything like her.

"Talk to Pepper," Natasha said.

"Are you a mind-reader?"

"No. I just know Steve would be thinking about his soulmate, and you're a lot like him."

"Steve hasn't met his yet."

"He'd still be thinking about her. Or him."

Bucky had the sense that she'd added those last two words just to see his reaction, hoped she was disappointed when he took the suggestion in stride.

"Call her," Natasha's words were simple, but they held a tone of command. "She'll set you right."

Bucky nodded. He'd promised to call Pepper regardless. Just the thought of seeing her again, even if only by videoconference, was enough to lift his spirits.

By the time they reached the quinjet, Bucky had shaken off most of his dark mood.

"I'll give you some privacy," Natasha began, but Bucky waved her forward.

"She's in Sofia for meetings," he said. "I don't know that she'll be able to take the call. Wait until we know. No sense kicking yourself out if you don't have to."

He tapped the command to lower the quinjet's ramp, strode into the craft, and within minutes was dialing Pepper's number. Voice mail connected immediately, and Bucky glanced at Natasha, shrugging.

"It's me," he said when the recording prompted him. "Call whenever you're free."

"So romantic," Natasha murmured as Bucky ended the call.

"What about you?" he asked. "You met your soulmate yet?"

"Thank you for assuming I have one."

"I saw your mark this morning, when we were changing."

That was something Bucky Barnes would never have done - just changed clothes in the same room with a woman he hadn't slept with. Not, he reflected, without trying to seduce her, anyway. The asset - the Winter Soldier - accepted the necessity of changing clothes, and simply did it. Natasha had behaved with similar unconcern, and he'd concluded it was just the way things were.

Natasha had stiffened at his words. "Did you read it?"

"I wouldn't invade your privacy like that unless it was necessary."

She relaxed, fractionally. "Yes."

"My turn to offer you privacy, then."

Natasha shook her head. "It's not necessary, but thank you."

Bucky knew a shutdown when he heard one, changed the subject so she wouldn't have to. "Game of poker, then?"

"What are we playing for?"

"Bragging rights?"

"That's the first game." Natasha looked thoughtful for a moment. "Loser buys the winner a case of vodka every month for a year."

"First one to win fifty games?"

"Make it a hundred." She frowned suddenly. "Does Stark even have cards on board?"

"I have a deck." Bucky withdrew it from a pocket. "Kept us occupied a lot of nights during the war."

"Deal me in. I'll find something to use as chips."

Twenty games later, a pile of rations in front of each of them, Natasha excused herself to go to the bathroom. Bucky stretched, then frowned as he saw the time.

Even with the three-hour time difference between here and Sofia, Pepper should have been done with her meetings by now. Bucky turned back to the control console and called Pepper's cell phone again.

Again it went straight to voice mail. He ended the call without leaving a message.

"Still no answer?"

"You gonna tease me for bein' worried?"

"I'm going to ask why you're worried."

"Besides that someone tried to kill her a couple of days ago?"

"Besides that." Natasha slipped into the co-pilot's seat, turned it so she faced him. "Are you feeling anything through your bond?"

"We haven't bonded yet."

A raised eyebrow was Natasha's only comment. He met silence with silence, and after long moments, she gave a slight shrug.

"Then why are you worried?"

"Gut feeling."

"Fine. Examine it logically. What reason does your gut have for feeling that way?"

Bucky grimaced. Wasn't the point of gut feelings that they weren't logical?

But Natasha was still talking, and he refocused on her words. "You were Pepper's bodyguard for a month. Think about what you observed during that time."

Bucky tapped the console, his metal fingers _pinging_ against it, punctuating the silence as he reviewed the month he'd spent as his soulmate's bodyguard. "She gets caught up in her work, so focused on it that she sometimes ignores the rest of the world."

"And?"

"And she never turns off her phone." Bucky looked up at Natasha. "When I call, it goes directly to voice mail. That means the phone's off, right?"

"That's one explanation," Natasha said.

"She never turns her phone off while she's on a business trip. Never that I saw," he corrected.

"So there's a break in her routine. What else?"

"She knows I plan to call tonight. She told me to call her cell." Now on firmer ground, Bucky felt his mouth tightening. "She wouldn't have turned it off tonight."

"Then let's see where she is." Natasha turned to the onboard computer, started typing in commands.

"You don't consider that invading her privacy?"

"I consider it easing your mind. Or your gut." Her fingers flew over the keyboard. "What's her cell number?"

Bucky gave it to her and made a mental note to get familiar with computers quickly. As the asset, the Winter Soldier, he'd had no need for that knowledge. His assignments had been more practical, more physical. Now, as the Avenger, the Winter Soldier, he couldn't predict what knowledge he might need.

Natasha wasn't quite frowning, but her expression was grave when she looked at him. "I'm not getting a ping from her phone."

"Which means?"

"It's off."

Bucky suspected that was an incomplete explanation, but her expression worried him. "What should we do?"

Natasha pursed her lips, thoughtful before she finally spoke. "Do you know where she's staying?"

"I can find out." Bucky reached out and contacted the tower.

"Good evening, Sergeant Barnes," JARVIS said. "I trust you're well?"

"Fine, thanks," Bucky responded automatically. "Can you tell me where Pepper's staying in Sofia?"

"She is registered at the Grand Hotel, sir."

"Thanks." Bucky ended the call, saw that Natasha was already punching buttons on her phone.

"Ms. Potts' room, please," she said into the phone. "My name is Maria Hill."

Bucky raised an eyebrow at the lie, but trusted that Natasha knew what she was doing. She was silent for long moments, then said, "No, thank you, no message."

"She didn't answer," Bucky said. "She said Cardona's handling her detail personally, this trip."

"You have his number, right?"

It was a simple, quiet question, but Bucky understood the implications, and they sent a chill down his spine.

He didn't bother to answer, just withdrew his own phone and tapped in the number. As when he'd called Pepper, voice mail answered immediately.

Natasha was frowning visibly. "My gut's starting to agree with your gut."

"Now my gut's saying we should fly to Sofia."

"I'll secure the hatch for takeoff."


	10. Chapter 10

It took several tries before Pepper finally stayed awake, and even then her eyelids fought to remain closed. Her will, fuzzy as it was from whatever she'd been sprayed with, decided the battle.

Pepper looked around, searching for any clues as to where she might be. A room, not a cave - or at least a cave with finished walls and doors. No windows. Bright caged lights along the walls - stone, she thought, or maybe brick. One large door with a small barred opening, presumably locked. And - _oh, God, what now?_ \- trays of surgical tools and equipment.

Only then did Pepper focus on herself. Instead of the business suit she'd been wearing, someone had stripped her and gotten her into a hospital gown. She lay on an adjustable hospital bed, her wrists and ankles secured to it.

 _Too bad your training didn't cover how to fight when restrained, Steve_.

Okay, that was certainly the anesthetic talking. If anyone were going to teach her about fighting while restrained, it was going to be her soulmate.

And that, too, had to be the anesthetic. Why else would she be having weird, unconnected thoughts like that? She had to concentrate, figure out how to get out of here. Then she had to figure out where _here_ was and then find a way home.

Pepper tested the restraints. They felt solid, at least to her test. She hadn't _tried_ yet, not with her full Extremis-enhanced strength.

But even the effort of looking around had her feeling exhausted again, and she lay back on the bed with a promise to herself of a few minutes' rest, and then a full effort to escape.

Noise at the door drew her attention, and she looked up as it opened and a man in medical scrubs came into the room, followed by an armed guard. Armed with some kind of automatic rifle, Pepper thought.

"Ms. Potts," the man in scrubs said. "My apologies for any discomfort you may be feeling, but those who brought you in were perhaps a bit overzealous in administering the anesthetic due to your … enhancements. I am glad you survived it."

His phrasing caught in Pepper's mind. "Cardona - my bodyguard. Is he -?"

"He should be fine," the man said. "He is, after all, only human."

Memory flashed - or maybe it was the drugs she'd been given? - and Pepper thought Cardona had been the one to spray her. Could that be right?

Whether it was or not, right now she had other priorities. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Nothing much," the man assured her. "But you are the only person to survive being injected with the Extremis virus. Of course you're of interest to us."

"Interest in the same way Nazis were interested in twins?"

The man looked offended. "Please, Ms. Potts. We are not nearly as barbaric as they were."

He pressed two fingers against her wrist, and the movement exposed his forearm, where a familiar tattoo rested.

"Ten Rings," Pepper said. "Are you the Mandarin?"

"Hardly." The man chuckled. "I am merely a researcher."

"Am I going to survive your research?"

"I hope so, very much."

If the circumstances were different, Pepper thought, he'd be the kind of doctor she'd want - confident and reassuring. Now, though, she took his words to mean _probably not_.

That just meant she'd have to escape sooner than later.

"For now," the man continued, "I merely wish to draw some blood and run some tests. Are you hungry?"

"Yes." No sense denying it, Pepper thought. She hadn't made it to Tavast for dinner, and she had no idea how long ago that was.

"After I draw your blood, I will have something sent to you." The man smiled again. "As I said, we are not barbarians."

There was no point replying to that, so Pepper lay back, letting her eyes fall closed as the man tied a tourniquet around her arm. However much or little blood he actually drew, she'd be weak afterward, at least until she ate. Conserving her strength made more sense.

She'd read somewhere - likely during those agonizing months when Tony had been missing - that a prisoner of war's first duty was to survive; his second to escape. She'd managed the first, at least so far. Now it was time to focus on the second.

#

It was almost noon by the time they arrived at the Grand Hotel. The asset chafed at the delay; Bucky understood Natalia's insistence on being dressed for the job.

"This is Europe," she'd said as he was bringing the quinjet in for landing. "Everything moves slower here than it does in the States, and more formally. The hotel staff won't even give us the time of day if we go in dressed in jeans and looking like we haven't slept in several days."

So they'd secured the quinjet and caught a couple of hours' nap. Or Natalia had, at least - Bucky lay awake, focused on the words at the base of his spine, thinking of the woman who'd spoken them to him and wishing they'd bonded that first night.

If they'd bonded, he might be able to track her through that shared awareness. But they hadn't, and it had been his decision not to. He'd thought at the time that not bonding was helping him keep her safe. Now -

 _No second guesses._ That was the asset's pure thought. _It was right in the moment, with the information we had. Now we find her and we make the sons of bitches who took her regret they were ever born._

Bucky wasn't certain whether the asset's "we" meant him and Natasha, or the two parts of his personality. In the end, he supposed it didn't matter - the result would be the same.

Then it was daylight and they were preparing for - well, for whatever it might be. They couldn't know, so they prepared for a fight.

"Once the stores open, we'll buy suits," Natasha said as they finished a breakfast of rations and bottled water. "Then we'll go to the hotel and see what we can find."

"Off the rack is good enough." Bucky let a little of the asset show in his voice.

"I don't like the delay, either," she said, apparently unperturbed by that tone. "Discretion matters, to Pepper if not to you."

"It matters." No need to explain why, that while he was mostly Bucky Barnes again, the asset would always be part of him, and most of the asset's work demanded discretion. Maybe the asset wasn't entirely a burden.

Burden or no, the asset cataloged everything and everyone they saw once they stepped into the lobby of the Grand Hotel.

Marble tile on the lobby floor would make it more difficult, though not impossible, for anyone to sneak up on them. Minimal furniture, a few pillars that looked more decorative than structural, so no cover there. A double handful of people coming and going, none of whom seemed to show much interest in them.

Still, Bucky hung back, allowed Natasha to take the lead as they approached the front desk. Like the floor, the counter and the wall behind it were covered in marble. The clerk on duty wore a gray suit, and he gave them a polite smile as they approached.

" _Dobroye utro_ ," she said, then repeated the greeting in English. "Good morning."

"Good morning," the clerk responded with only a trace of an accent to his English. "How may I assist you?"

"Would you be kind enough to call Ms. Potts' room?" Natasha gave him a smile. Bucky thought she didn't intend it to be seductive, but she was Red Room, and a hint of seduction seeped into almost everything she did.

Natasha slid a Stark Industries identification badge across the counter. "We've just landed, and she's expecting us."

"Surely, then, you know her room number?"

Natasha's smile never wavered. "We called her cell phone. It went to voice mail."

While Natasha spoke to the clerk, Bucky pulled out his cell phone. Whatever his gut might say, there was still the chance they were overreacting. He touched Pepper's number again, listened as the call went again to voice mail.

Automatically, he tapped in Cardona's number next. Once more, the call went to voice mail.

That chance that they were overreacting was approaching zero.

When he returned his full attention to Natasha, the clerk was shaking his head.

"I am sorry. I cannot reveal her room number. I can send a message to her, or have something delivered."

"Can you send someone – housekeeping staff, or security – to knock on her door, please?" Natasha asked. "Just to see if she's all right."

"Has she been ill?"

"She's recovering," Bucky said, the first time he'd spoken to the clerk. Even now, though, he stood half-turned away from the desk, surveying the lobby.

"In that case, I can ask security to check."

"Thank you." Natasha didn't look at him, instead giving every appearance of being the concerned employee. It was only half a lie.

Hotel security was going to check on Pepper. Soon, they'd know what was going on. Bucky held onto that thought, repeating it in his mind like a mantra, calming the asset who wanted to leap the counter and beat Pepper's room number out of the clerk. Or get it from the hotel computer, but that would be much less satisfying.

"Someone is on the way up right now." The clerk's statement and Natasha's acknowledgment registered in his awareness, but movement at the door drew Bucky's focus.

It wasn't unusual for someone to come into a hotel lobby. It was unusual for that person to be staggering in at noon, wearing a rumpled business suit, his head down as though holding it upright was just too much effort.

Then the man raised his head just enough to look around the lobby, and Bucky's gut clenched.

Cardona.

Cardona's gaze landed on him, and for the briefest moment, confusion showed in his expression. Then it shifted to an emotion Bucky knew very well: fear.

Bucky started toward Cardona, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor. Cardona's gaze darted right and left, but then he continued forward, staggering toward Bucky.

"Where's Pepper?" were Bucky's first words as soon as they were close enough to speak quietly.

"I don't know."

"You're her bodyguard. How can you not know?" His metallic hand was clenching at his side. If it were flesh, it would be itching to wrap itself around Cardona's throat.

"We were attacked," Cardona said. "The driver sprayed us with some kind of anesthetic. I woke up in the car, and she was gone."

"And you didn't report it?"

"I couldn't find my phone. Or hers."

"Come on," Bucky said. "We'll call the local police. You can tell them, and us, everything."

"Us?"

"Romanoff's here, too." Bucky nodded toward the desk, and Cardona went pale.

"Come on," Bucky repeated, grabbing Cardona's elbow to support him.

They were halfway across the lobby when Natasha turned away from the clerk. Even at this distance, Bucky saw her eyes narrow as she recognized Cardona.

Only the discretion that was long habit kept him from speaking until he was at the front desk. "Call the police," he told the clerk, his voice flat. "Ms. Potts has been kidnapped."


	11. Chapter 11

If there had been anything at all good within Hydra, it had been their lack of formal procedures. Bucky understood that procedures were in place to protect the innocent and the accused, but the asset wanted to act, to protect what was his and punish those who threatened him or his.

Still, even the asset knew that acting without full information was risky and in this case could put what was his in more danger than she already was. So he endured the Bulgarian police's clumsy interrogation of Cardona, their reconstruction of Pepper's movements, and their assurance that they would do everything they could to ensure Ms. Potts' safe return.

How Natasha navigated the minefield of questions without revealing that she and Bucky were Avengers was a mystery, and only one reason Bucky allowed her to take the lead for it.

Finally, the police were gone, with instructions to contact them if a ransom demand arrived and assurances that they would coordinate with Interpol and the police forces in neighboring countries to find Pepper, and Bucky found himself prowling Cardona's hotel room while Natasha brought the other man a drink.

"Thanks," Cardona said, taking a gulp of the water she'd given him.

"Perhaps you'll tell us why you lied to the police."

Later, Bucky would be able to sort what happened into some semblance of order – Natasha's too-gentle suggestion, Cardona's sputtering cough, the asset flinging Cardona against the nearest wall with a metal hand around his throat. In the moment, however, all he was aware of was the soft tissue beneath his hand, the asset's rage surging forward, demanding that he get the truth from Cardona in whatever fashion was most efficient.

Cardona struggled to loosen Bucky's metal hand. It would do him no good. Even Steve hadn't been able to break that hold, and Cardona was only human.

"Bucky." Natasha's voice again, still soft but now with a hint of command. " _Zima Soldat_. He has to breathe to talk."

That was true. Bucky loosened his grip, and allowed the asset to surface in his expression and his voice. "Tell us everything."

"Family," Cardona said, his voice raspy.

"What's the threat?" Natasha asked, and even the asset allowed a little compassion for a man whose family had been threatened.

"They'll kill my wife – my soulmate – and our kids if I tell you."

"I'll kill you if you don't," Bucky said. "Pepper's _my_ soulmate."

"Oh, my God." Cardona's expression ranged from terrified to grieving. "I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry."

"So you understand that I want to know everything you know," he continued, "and at the moment, I don't much care how you tell me – voluntarily or not."

"I can't, I'm sorry, I can't. They'll kill her. The kids –"

Then Natasha was there, using her bodyweight and leverage to nudge Bucky away. The asset growled, but Natasha met his glare with her own. "Let me."

Bucky summoned his will – _his_ will, not the asset, not even the Winter Soldier – and took a step back.

"Who'll kill them?" Natasha asked.

That question Cardona seemed willing to answer. "Ten Rings. They're everywhere, they swore they'd kill them if I told anyone."

"We're the Avengers," Natasha told Cardona. "We can protect your family. Sergeant Barnes will call right now and arrange for them to be brought into custody."

The use of his formal title helped him focus. Bucky moved away from the other two, allowing Natasha to handle this the way she'd handled the desk clerk. He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found Maria Hill.

"Barnes," she greeted him. "How's Russia?"

"Manuel Cardona," Bucky countered. "His soulmate and their kids are being threatened by the Ten Rings."

Hill swore, briefly, before saying, "You're certain of your intel?"

"Comes from the man himself." Bucky paused. "They've got Pepper."

He hadn't heard such creative invective since his days in Nazi Germany. "I'll get Rogers and Barton on it now."

Bucky returned the phone to his pocket and turned to face the others. "Captain America and Hawkeye will see that your family's safe."

Cardona's relief was almost overwhelming. "When they're safe, I'll tell you everything I know."

#

For the first time in her adult life, Pepper lost track of time. There were no clocks to beep reminders of her appointments, no assistants reminding her she was needed elsewhere, not even a window to let her judge the passage of days. On top of that, they'd drugged her pretty heavily, so she couldn't even guess days by when she slept.

When they'd brought her food after that first discussion with the so-called doctor, they'd released her from her restraints. Not, she thought, that there was much chance of her trying to escape with two guards armed with what she assumed were high-powered rifles stationed such that they could cover the entire room without threatening each other.

"I doubt even the Extremis would heal you if your brains were blown out," the doctor said. "But if you want to test that, be my guest."

So Pepper remained quiet as the doctor released her and left the room, leaving behind a tray of food. She checked the tray quickly - no knife, of course. No fork, either - just a plastic spoon beside the paper plates and cups.

Surprisingly, the meal itself offered the first clue as to how long she'd been a prisoner: stuffed peppers, bread, and a cherry tart were arranged on the tray. Definitely not breakfast food, not even in Europe, so it must be at least lunchtime and possibly even dinnertime. She'd been gone at least overnight.

That realization gave her hope. She'd missed Bucky's call. Maybe he'd realize something was wrong and come looking for her.

Then she chided herself for wanting to be rescued like some princess in a fairy tale. She was Pepper Potts, damn it!

On reflection, that didn't sound nearly as inspirational as she'd hoped. Pepper Potts might be a force in the business world, but this was hardly the kind of business she understood, and she wasn't delusional enough to think that a couple of nights of training with Steve was enough to give her the knowledge and skill she'd need for this kind of business.

Reminding herself that a prisoner's first duty was to survive, and going on the assumption that they wouldn't kill her before they'd done all the tests they thought they needed, she picked up the spoon and began to eat.

When she'd finished the meal - European portions, but surprisingly tasty for prison food - Pepper began a thorough search of the room.

Not that there was much to search - the stone walls, the shelves bracketed to the walls, and a small alcove with a hole in the floor that she assumed was a toilet.

She frowned, studying the room. It was longer than it was wide, with a curved ceiling that suggested it was underground. A wine cellar, perhaps? That the shelves along the walls were somewhat angled, which would allow the sediment in the wine to settle at the cork, seemed to confirm her suspicion.

Whether she was right or not, the conclusion did nothing to increase her chances for escape. And even these few minutes of just standing on the stone floor had chill seeping through the hospital socks she wore.

Pepper returned to the gurney and sat. This was the challenge of being a prisoner, she thought. Not enduring physical pain so much as not giving in to the sheer boredom of it. Why hadn't Steve told her that?

Then again, she'd only had two lessons with him. Most likely, the boredom aspect just hadn't come up yet. She'd have to suggest he change the order of instruction when she got home.

 _If you get home_.

No. Pepper refused to think in terms of _if_. She _would_ get out of here. She _would_ give Steve grief for not warning her about the boredom, and she _would_ see Bucky again.

Bucky. How would _he_ handle this situation?

He'd already have made a plan to escape, that's for sure. He'd probably rip the heavy wooden door right off its hinges with his metal arm… Pepper smiled slowly.

She didn't have a metal arm, but she _did_ have Extremis running through her veins. It had enhanced her strength, but was it enough?

Pepper slid off the gurney and padded to the door. The massive, iron-reinforced, wooden door. At least, she thought, it did have a small, barred window.

She looked out the window, saw one guard, armed, stationed right outside. He turned toward her, and she held his gaze a moment - _don't let them know you're scared, even if you're terrified_ \- before looking further. A corridor stretched away, with a turn to the left. In the corner where it turned, another armed guard stood.

Even if she got past the first guard, the second would bring her down before she could get to him. Her captors apparently had great respect for what she could do.

Unfortunately, right now however much she could do, it wasn't enough.

#

The callback took longer than Bucky expected. He'd been pacing Cardona's hotel room pretty much the entire time despite Cardona's observation that the pacing was making him dizzy and Natasha's quiet musing that she didn't see how he'd managed to be still long enough to have confirmed more than a hundred kills as a sniper.

"Different circumstances," was all Bucky had said to that comment.

When his phone finally rang, he all but yanked it from his pocket. "Yeah?"

"I'm not on speaker, am I?" Steve sounded tired.

"No, just me."

"They were waiting for us."

Bucky's stomach clenched. "And?"

"Fat lot of good it did them." Satisfaction echoed through the fatigue in Steve's voice. "Cardona's family is safe."

"Punk." The word rode Bucky's relieved exhale. Then he looked to Cardona. "Your soulmate's safe."

Cardona looked relieved, but only for an instant before the anxiety returned. "Where? I think they have spies at the Tower."

"Where?" Bucky asked into the phone.

"A safe house."

"Not the Tower?"

"Not the Tower," Steve confirmed. "Tasha knows about it."

Bucky frowned at his partner. "Steve said you know about a safe house?"

Natasha raised one eyebrow, then smiled. "They're as safe as they can be."

That appeared to reassure Cardona, and he sank back into his chair with a muttered, "Thank God."

"You need us over there?" Steve was asking. "Barton's with Cardona's family, but I can bring Tony."

"With any luck, it'll be over by the time you get here," Bucky said. "Thanks."

"Stark's in my other ear, telling me he's supersonic and can be there in four hours."

"Like I said, over before he gets here. Right, Cardona?" Bucky ended the call and turned to Cardona.

"I don't know everything," Cardona said. "Just that they intended to take her to a base here in Bulgaria for a while, before transferring her through Romania to Ukraine."

"Where?" Bucky demanded.

"I don't know. I swear!" Cardona added, and Bucky realized he wore the asset's scowl.

Bucky schooled his expression and turned to Natasha. "Your knowledge of the area is more recent than mine. What do you think?"

Natasha looked thoughtful. "Nikopol, Svishtov, and Ruse come to mind. They're all close to or on the Romanian border and close to Romanian cities. Maybe your friend from last night can narrow it down?"

Friend? Oh. Leonid.

Bucky wasn't willing to use his personal phone for this call – he had to assume Leonid would keep a record of the number the call came from, after all – and he had no burner phone on him. So he grabbed the hotel phone and punched in the number Leonid had given him.

Leonid answered on the second ring. " _Da_?"

Once again, Russian came easily to him. "What have you got for me?"

"For who – ah. _Zima Soldat_." There was a rustle, and when Leonid spoke again, Bucky had the impression that the man had stood or sat up straighter than he had been. "Not all of my contacts have been as prompt at responding as I would have liked."

"But some have?"

"Some have. Can you narrow your request at all?"

"An American woman, taken from Sofia, probably en route to Ukraine via Romania."

"That is very narrow," Leonid said. "But I may be able to help. I have heard rumors that Ten Rings may need a large number of people in Ruse. Any medical background is preferred."

"What else? Names, addresses, anything?"

"Only that they would be moving quickly across the border – perhaps tonight." Leonid paused. "The simplest way to do so would be to cross the Danube between Ruse and Giurgiu."

" _Spasibo_." Bucky hung up, turned to Natasha and continued in Russian, "They may be moving her tonight."

"Then it's time for us to go." Natasha got gracefully to her feet and started for the door. Bucky fell into step with her and old-fashioned manners urged him to open the door for her.

"Where are you going?" Cardona demanded.

"To get my soulmate," Bucky answered.

"How can I help?" Cardona asked. Bucky glared at him, but Cardona met his gaze without flinching.

"I would never have done what I did if my own soulmate hadn't been threatened," Cardona said. "Let me help get yours back."

The asset wanted to kill him. Bucky came close to agreeing. Recognizing that he wasn't being objective, he shot an inquiring glance at Natasha.

She was studying Cardona, though, and after a moment, she said, "Keep up or get left behind."


	12. Chapter 12

Some indeterminable time after Pepper had admitted that she had no idea how she might escape this place, a noise at the door caught her attention. It swung open to reveal the doctor – he hadn't offered his name, and she didn't care enough to ask – flanked by the same two armed guards who had brought her lunch and had been stationed in the corridor when she'd checked.

Now that she thought about it, Pepper realized they were the only three people she'd seen since she'd awakened. Were they the only ones here? If so, her chances of escape had just gone up dramatically.

Or, the practical part of her suggested, they'd just come to kill her.

Either way, she'd meet her fate standing, and she was standing straight before the doctor had fully entered the room.

"If you'll come with us," the doctor said. "I need to run a few tests."

"What kind of tests?" Pepper asked.

"A routine CT scan and an MRI, nothing intrusive," the doctor assured her. "You might even take a nap while the machines do their work."

Not likely, Pepper thought, but acquiescence was a good tactic to lull them into complacency - or so Steve had said, and Tony had confirmed based on his months in the desert.

"Trouble with kidnapping someone smarter than you," Tony had said one night. "They had no idea what I was really building. But it looked like I was doing what they asked, so they left me mostly alone."

And if she were Tony Stark, or even Bruce Banner, she might be smart enough to figure a way out of here. But no, she was just Virginia "Pepper" Potts, whose administrative and organizational skills made her the top female CEO in the country, but were woefully inadequate in this circumstance. There was no way she could organize her way out of this. She had to hope that whatever the Extremis had done to her would be enough.

For now, she followed the doctor from her cell, flanked by the two armed guards. They turned left at the L in the corridor and ascended a flight of steps. At the top of the stairs, another heavy wooden door opened to -

Pepper blinked against the daylight streaming through windows, harsh after so long in the dim cellar. When she could see clearly again, she registered three things in rapid succession.

First, the windows provided views of lush green lawns, landscaped to perfection, but otherwise nondescript. No places to hide, no cover - a killing ground.

Second, the medicinal stink of a hospital - no, a sick room. Someone here was quite ill, and possibly dying.

Third, and most depressing, there were people everywhere she could see - medical personnel, more armed guards, and what appeared to be low-level thugs and administrative types.

In other words, whatever this place was, it was a fully functioning base of operations, not unlike the Stark/Avengers tower in New York.

Which meant her chances of escape had plummeted to near zero. Not zero completely - Pepper wouldn't allow herself to give up hope, not after all the miraculous events she'd seen - but nearly so.

"I had hoped this would be much easier," the doctor was saying, and Pepper returned her attention to him as they walked. "A simple transfusion, and then we could let you go, none the wiser, save for a few hours of which you had no memory. But you're AB, and the patient is A. Completely incompatible."

"I'm so sorry to disappoint you." For once, Pepper allowed an edge of sarcasm, honed through years of working and being with Tony Stark, to sharpen her words.

To her surprise, the doctor grinned at her. "Oh, it's no disappointment - every cloud has a silver lining, they say, and mine is that I get to participate in cutting-edge research into biogenetics."

"How fortunate for you." It was, Pepper decided, incredibly freeing to say precisely what she wanted to say in just the right tone, rather than trying to be diplomatic all the time. Even if this mad scientist type did seem impervious to sarcasm.

"Not really." They turned down a corridor toward what Pepper thought might have been a work room. "I can't publish what I find. No one outside the Ten Rings will ever know what I accomplish, and not even all of them."

The room they came to had been fitted with MRI and CT scanners, and a woman Pepper assumed was some kind of medical technician, possibly even a nurse, was waiting.

"So who is it?" Pepper asked.

"Pardon?" the doctor turned a puzzled glance to her.

"Who is Ten Rings so desperate to save?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the doctor asked as he gestured her to lie on the bed of the CT scanner. "The Mandarin."

#

"A hundred and fifty thousand people," Natasha mused from the co-pilot's seat as Bucky brought the quinjet in for a landing outside Ruse.

"And any one of them could be holding Pepper," Bucky concluded.

They were cleared for this trip thanks to a request from Captain America himself - despite Bulgaria's spotty record during the Second World War, the Bulgarians had an immense respect for the man who'd symbolized resistance to the Nazi party - and Tony Stark threatening to use all the publicity at his command to decimate Bulgaria's tourist industry, but still Bucky kept the quinjet in stealth mode. No need to draw more attention to themselves than necessary.

"Too bad Leonid couldn't narrow the search down any further." Natasha engaged the quinjet's security while Bucky shut down the engines.

"So we start with _bratva_ ," Bucky said, "then move up. Someone knows something."

"Are they blocking her somehow?"

The question from the rear compartment made Bucky glare over his shoulder at Cardona. "Is who blocking whom?"

"Are the bad guys blocking Pepper somehow?" Cardona clarified, which really wasn't much clarification at all.

"What do you mean?" Natasha's voice had gone low and dangerous.

"Soul-bonded mates can sense each other," Cardona said.

"We haven't bonded yet."

"It's worth a try," Natasha said, jarring him back to the present. He stared at her, and he had no idea what his expression might've been, but she shrugged.

"I'm no scientist," she said, "but soulbonds are like meteorology and quantum physics. Everybody thinks they understand how they work, but nobody really does. The bond already exists, in some form, as evidenced by the words. Why not a form that would allow you to find your mate, too?"

It made sense. Bucky shifted in his seat to face Cardona. "What do I do?"

Cardona looked a little lost, but said, "Just - relax, focus on her. You'll feel it."

"If it can be felt without the bond," Bucky muttered. A sharp glare from Natasha had him raising the hand nearest her - the metal one, as it turned out - in surrender. "Okay. I'll do what I can."

He settled back into the seat, let his eyes drift closed as he summoned an image of Pepper to his mind's eye. Pepper as she'd looked the first time they'd seen each other, all calm and competent and such a contrast to the second time, when her cheeks had been bulging with some of Barton's leftover Thai food. Then how she'd looked when they'd exchanged words, more irritated than frightened that someone had tried to kill her.

 _Where are you, doll? I'll come help you get out, if you'll just let me know where you are._

#

Pepper had never been claustrophobic, which meant that she had no excuse to delay the inevitable. Of course, these people being Ten Rings, they'd probably just have sedated her and proceeded with the scans anyway.

So she climbed onto the bed of the CT scanner and let them proceed with their tests while she went over Steve's instructions, given in short bits during breaks from the physical drills.

"Always, always focus on who you are and what you care for," he'd said. "Nobody is completely resistant to brainwashing -"

He'd faltered, then, and Pepper knew they were both thinking of Bucky and what had been done to him.

Steve recovered quickly and continued, "But there's no need to make it easy for them."

What she cared for - that was the difficulty. For the longest time, that was Tony, but though they were still friends, even best friends, that affection wasn't enough to keep her going. Now she had Bucky, and though they were soulmates, they hadn't spent nearly enough time together for her to say that she truly cared for him.

She respected him, admired him, found him amazingly sexy and charming, and knew that he'd never give up looking for her, not until one or the other of them were dead.

 _Stop thinking like_ that _._ That was hardly the kind of thing Steve wanted her to focus on in a situation like this. _Think of something else. Think of Bucky - you don't care for him, love him, yet, but you could. You just need to get back to him._

It helped, thinking that he'd look for her as long as there was breath in his body.

Pepper pictured him in her mind's eye, lethal competence only partly covered by charm and a quirky grin. She hoped he found her, or she escaped. Either one would suffice.

 _Just let me know where you are._

It was as though he whispered in her ear, as though he were already coming for her. Pepper whispered back.

 _I'm right here. I'll always be here for you._

#

"I've got - something," Bucky said.

"A location?" Natasha asked.

"A sense of a direction." He leaned forward, called up a topographic map of Ruse and its surroundings. The location of their quinjet glowed a soft blue, and Cardona stepped up to look over his shoulder as he traced a line northwest from their location.

"This way," he said.

"Then we start that way," Natasha said. "I'll take point, Cardona will take the rear. You focus on Pepper, see if you can narrow down the location based on your sense of her.

It was as good a plan as any, and Bucky rose from the seat to stride toward the rear of the quinjet and the compartments that held their gear. He stripped off his shirt and then his undershirt, paying no attention to Cardona's muffled gasp, before pulling his combat vest - the one that left his metal arm exposed - from its place.

"Not your most subtle look," Natasha said.

He didn't look at her as he fitted weapons into their respective sheaths and holsters. "I want them to know who they pissed off."

"God help them," Cardona muttered. Bucky ignored that, too.

He couldn't ignore the feather-light touch of fingertips on his skin, just at the base of his spine. He only barely contained a flinch at the contact.

"Of course her handwriting is as elegant and efficient as she is," Natasha observed softly. Then, more firmly, "We will get her back."

Bucky could only hope God didn't have other plans.


	13. Chapter 13

Pepper endured the CT scan and then the MRI, and then eyed the doctor skeptically as he brought a tray full of syringes and set it beside her.

"More blood, I'm afraid," the doctor told her. "And cerebrospinal fluid, as well."

"Is your analysis not going as well as you'd expected?" Pepper asked pleasantly.

"You are the only one to survive the Extremis," the doctor said, as though they both didn't already know that. "So far, the only thing that distinguishes you from the others who were given it is your blood type. That, however, will not help the Mandarin, so we continue to look for something that will."

The doctor gestured with one hand toward a room across the hall, and Pepper saw a bank of computers that rivaled anything at Stark Industries.

"We are devoting all of Ten Rings' resources to this, of course," the doctor said. "It is only a matter of time before we succeed."

#

"That's a helluva killing field," Natasha observed. Bucky had to agree.

His sense of Pepper had brought them here, to mansion outside Ruse. Nineteenth century, Natasha had guessed, but Bucky didn't care. He cared that his soulmate was inside, and much as the primal part of him, the asset, wanted to be the one to rescue her, the Winter Soldier bowed to practicality.

"I've got enough cover here," he said, referring to the patch of woods perhaps a hundred meters south of the building proper. "I'll cover you and Cardona while you get inside and find her."

"Good idea, in broad outline," Cardona said. "Let me tweak the details."

The asset snarled. "What details?"

"I'll cover the two of you," Cardona said.

Bucky flicked him a disbelieving glance, and Cardona grinned. "You aren't the only sniper in the world, you know. I can't match your kill total, but I got my share in Iraq. Besides, your sense of her won't help you find her from out here."

"He has a point," Natasha said. Then she gave Cardona a small smile. "But if you shoot us in the back, there won't be any place on Earth you can hide from the rest of the Avengers."

"I won't." Cardona's simple words had the ring of a vow, and the asset relaxed, if only marginally, as he handed over his rifle and ammo to Cardona, then helped the other man build a makeshift nest.

"They'll know where you're firing from," Natasha said.

"And I've got more than a hundred yards to get them before they get me," Cardona said, resting his cheek against the butt of the rifle. "Get ready."

Bucky glanced at Natasha. She nodded in response, and almost as one, they stepped to the very edge of the trees.

"I'll start with the two on the roof." Cardona's voice sounded low and steady in Bucky's earpiece. "In three. Two. One."

The last word had barely left his mouth before Bucky and Natasha were sprinting for the mansion. Two muffled shots sounded in quick succession, and Bucky watched the two guards collapse onto the roof.

Thanks to the super-soldier serum, Bucky outpaced Natasha in the dash to the door. Still, he flattened himself against the wall, knife ready in one hand in case that door should open and a hostile emerge.

Then she was at the other side of the door, nodding at him as she caught her breath.

Not for long, though. For now, they still had surprise on their side, and he was going to use it. Another glance to confirm that Natasha was ready, and Bucky stepped in front of the door. It was surely too heavy to kick in, but it wasn't made of steel, and therefore, he could put his metal fist through it.

He suited action to thought, and with a splintering crunch, his fist went through the wood. He felt around inside the door, twisted the handle, and it swung open.

Natasha ghosted inside while Bucky worked his hand free, and then he was inside with her. They'd come into a servants' or tradesmen's entrance, he thought, based on the cramped quarters and lack of other people around.

Those other people would already be on their way, Bucky knew. If Cardona's shots hadn't alerted them, then surely his forceful entry had.

As one, he and Natasha moved forward. Bucky returned the knife to its sheath and drew a pair of handguns from holsters under his arms.

"Too quiet," he whispered. "They should be responding by now."

"Some of these old houses have stone walls," Natasha replied. "Sound baffling if not sound deadening."

"No movement out here," Cardona said.

Bucky nodded at Natasha. "Let's go."

#

They were at the open door of the stairs to Pepper's cell when two sharp noises, like cracks of distant thunder, sounded.

"What was that?" the doctor demanded.

The guards with them exchanged a wordless look.

Pepper's pulse raced. Could it be that someone had found her, somehow?

"Find out what it is," the doctor ordered. "No, wait."

The guards turned back.

"Secure our guest. I'll go check." The doctor strode away.

Whether someone had found her or not, this distraction might offer the best chance to escape that she'd get.

With that thought, she swung a fist as hard as she could into the nearest guard's stomach. With a grunt, he doubled over, and she brought her elbow down on the back of his neck.

She whirled on the other guard, only to come face-to-muzzle with his gun. She froze.

"Unh-uh," the guard said. "Back up, down the stairs. Slowly. I will kill you if I have to."

Pepper had no choice but to obey.

#

Bucky and Natasha emerged from the back kitchen into - a hospital wing? Sure looked like one - and an array of guns pointed at them.

He cursed under his breath. Of course nobody had come running to investigate the noise. That hallway was a bottleneck, one they were at the mouth of.

Natasha was shooting almost before he finished the thought, falling to her knees so he'd have a clear shot over her head.

His own guns spat in counterpoint to hers, the noise from all the weapons deadened by suppressors fitted to the barrels.

"So who is it?" he asked.

"Who's what?" Natasha countered.

"Your soulmate."

She missed a target, instead destroying a vase of flowers on a hallway table. "You're asking me this now?"

"Gotta talk about something while we clear this mess."

"I remember you saying something about invading my privacy."

"And I dropped the subject. Then you hadda get all touchy with my words, so it's back on the table." Movement at the edge of his vision made him aim high right, and someone coming down the stairs fell forward.

"So - someone on the team?"

Natasha swore in Russian.

"You do know that's biologically impossible, right?"

"No, it's not someone on the team. I'm empty."

Bucky grunted an acknowledgment, flicked the lever on the gun in his left hand that took it from single shot to semi-auto, fired off three short bursts while Natasha reloaded. By the time she'd finished, the group in front of them were all down.

"I'll clear the floor," she told him. "You find Pepper."

Both Bucky and the asset were glad to follow instructions.

#

The first two cracks might have been thunder, Pepper thought, but the thunderstorm of noise that followed was certainly a gunfight.

The gunfight was not, unfortunately, distracting her guard anymore. No, he was focused on getting her back into her cell and she wondered whether it was worth a renewed effort to escape.

The guard she'd gut-punched still writhed on the floor, and the other was urging her backward, toward the open door.

Pepper took one step, a second, and her heel touched empty air. She'd reached the edge of the staircase. If she went any further, she'd be a prisoner. Again.

Like hell she would.

She bent a knee, as though to take a step back, then lunged forward, the Extremis lending speed and strength to her movement.

Even so, she knew she was lucky the guard didn't reflexively pull the trigger as he jerked backward. At this range, he couldn't miss, and she'd likely have had her heart shredded by the hail of bullets.

But he didn't, and then she was barreling into him, momentum carrying them both to the floor. She tried to punch, to hit, to kick, but he tossed the gun away and it became a wrestling match.

She might have strength, but this guard outmassed her by twenty kilos, easy - it wouldn't be long before he'd have her pinned, and not even Extremis would save her from having her breath choked out of her.

Then his weight was off her, and she fought for air even as she watched the guard fly into the wall and collapse.

A shadow filled her vision, and a cool metal hand reached out to her.

"Are you all right? Did he hurt you?" The questions were an eerie echo, in meaning if not exact phrasing, of the first words Bucky had ever spoken to her. She hoped similar questions wouldn't become a habit.

"I'm okay," she said, taking the hand he offered and letting him pull her to her feet and into his arms.

It was a quick, hard hug, punctuated by a quicker, harder kiss. But Bucky was quite definitely on the clock now, judging by the array of weapons on his flak vest and the gun in his human hand, so Pepper pulled back after allowing herself a very brief moment of relief that he was actually here, and not just some conjuration of a too-bored prisoner's mind.

"Let's get you out of here, doll."

"Yes, please," Pepper said. "Before these two wake up."

Bucky's response was to raise his gun and fire two shots.

Pepper jumped, a scream catching in her throat, and forced herself to look at the two guards. Each one of them had a wound at an ankle.

"They won't come after us now." There was a different tone in Bucky's voice, and when Pepper looked back at him, his eyes were flatter than they had been, and she swallowed, hard. This wasn't Bucky Barnes, or not _just_ Bucky Barnes. This was the Winter Soldier.

She supposed she should be glad he hadn't killed them.

"Come on," Bucky said, and turned away, apparently assuming she would follow.

Which she did.


	14. Chapter 14

_Pepper was safe._

The asset scoffed at Bucky's thought. Nobody was ever truly safe, after all. But she hadn't been hurt, and now he was leading her toward Natasha, toward Cardona, and then the quinjet, and she would be safe enough once they arrived.

"Got her," he said into his comm, and received Natasha's crisp, "Good," in reply.

Cardona's reply came a couple of heartbeats later. "You've got incoming. Two trucks, probably twenty men each. ETA two minutes."

Bucky's curse matched Natasha's. She followed it with, "I see them. There's a third truck heading your way, Cardona. Get clear before they get there."

"I won't abandon you," Cardona said.

"We didn't save your soulmate just so you could die," Natasha snapped. "Get back to the quinjet. JARVIS will talk you through the pre-flight routine. When _Soldat_ and I get Pepper out of here, we'll be coming in hot, so be ready for us."

"But -" Cardona began.

"No buts," Bucky said. "Go."

There was silence for a long moment, then Cardona spoke again. "It'll be ready. Good luck."

"Who's going where?" Pepper asked.

"Cardona," Bucky said shortly, starting toward the servant's stairs.

Pepper's sharp inhale made him pause. "He's with them - he's the one who -"

"The one whose soulmate they threatened," Bucky said. "He didn't help them because he wanted to. And he told me how to find you. C'mon, company's coming."

He picked up the pace, hurrying past bodies of those who'd gotten in his way, wishing his soulmate didn't have to see this. It wasn't her life, it was his, and for this terrible hour, the two had overlapped.

"Wait," Pepper said, and her voice made him turn.

"What?" he snapped.

"We can't go. Not yet," she added as he opened his mouth to bark an order. She gestured into the room they were just passing. "All their research, the samples and tests they ran - it's all in there. We have to destroy it."

Bucky glanced into the room, saw a bank of computers and, behind them, a large medical refrigerator.

"Easy enough." Bucky took a step back, raised the automatic rifle he'd grabbed off one of the fallen terrorist kidnappers, thumbed it to full auto.

Pepper's hand landed on his arm before he pulled the trigger.

"That's not enough," she said. "I've seen data recovered from hard drives that looked like they weren't even good for a paperweight. We have to destroy the data itself, not just the computers."

Then she was striding into the room, heading for where one of the keyboards had fallen to the floor. Bucky took up a protective position by the door as he explained the delay to Natasha.

A glance over his shoulder told him that Pepper had perched on a stool by the terminal.

"Dammit." Her curse surprised him more than anything else. Had she ever cursed before? Not in his memory.

"What's wrong, doll?"

"It's a Cyrillic keyboard. I don't read Cyrillic."

"I do." Sure, it might be Bulgarian, not Russian, but he'd have a better chance than she did. "Trade me places."

Pepper ran back to him, and he offered her the rifle he held. "You know how to shoot?"

"I've only shot handguns."

"Principle's the same." Quickly, he showed her how to switch from single shot to short burst to full auto. "If you go full auto, you'll be out of ammo in thirty seconds or less, so don't."

"All right." Pepper shouldered the rifle, and while Bucky wanted to smile at how small she looked compared to it, the Winter Soldier was scowling.

"Recoil's gonna be rough. You need something to brace against."

"And you need to be erasing data," Pepper told him. "I'll handle this."

Bucky nodded, and ran back to the computer desk, studying the display on the screen.

"Natalia."

"I'll stop calling you _Soldat_ if you stop calling me Natalia."

"Pepper says we need to destroy some data. Talk me through it."

"Hang on." Two shots echoed in his earpiece. "I'm on the roof, delaying them as best I can." Two more shots. "Tell me what you see, exactly."

It was, of course, Bulgarian, not Russian, but Bucky translated as best he could and read the information off to her.

From behind him, he heard Pepper gasp. "They're coming."

Her voice trembled, and Bucky glanced over his shoulder. Pepper held the rifle correctly, if a little hesitantly, so he pitched his voice for calm, just as he had back in Nazi Germany on those rare occasions that new soldiers joined their ranks.

"That's it," he told her. "Squeeze the trigger, aim for the body. Just hold them off a minute or two, and we'll be fine."

#

 _"We'll be fine."_

That was easy for Bucky to say - he'd been through this before. Pepper hadn't, not really, and she was terrified.

It had been easier not to be afraid when it was only her life at risk. But now there was Cardona, and Natasha, and Bucky. Her soulmate.

Pepper knew that Bucky and Natasha were very good at their work, but knowing it seemed so inadequate in the face of a couple of dozen armed men heading her way.

They were at the far end of the corridor, moving slowly, cautiously. They hadn't noticed her yet, apparently too focused on clearing the other rooms along the way.

It was in that moment that she realized the gaping hole in the instruction she'd gotten from both Steve and Bucky.

 _When_ was she supposed to pull the trigger?

Oh, she hadn't expected anything as clichéd as "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes," but just _where_ in the hundreds-of-yards-long range of the rifle did she first shoot at approaching hostiles?

She glanced over at Bucky, the question ready to escape, but the sight of him froze her thoughts.

He was leaning forward over the computer keyboard, and though she couldn't see his face from this angle, the lines of his body suggested he was concentrating deeply. And then there was that little strip of skin…

His flak jacket had ridden up when he sat, and his trousers down, _just_ enough that she could see dark lines on his skin. If it weren't for the Extremis that had enhanced her senses just slightly, she never would have been able to make them out in any detail.

But then, she didn't need to make them out. She knew the words. _"You cut your hair."_

Bucky must have sensed her gaze on him, because he turned just enough to look at her and smile.

A heartbeat later, he was frowning, and Pepper was instinctively looking down the corridor.

The men had spotted her and were raising their own weapons.

She supposed she should pull the trigger now.

#

Bucky couldn't help wincing ever so slightly at the _rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat_ of Pepper firing on their enemy.

 _Goddamn stone walls, couldn't ask for a better echo chamber…_ But beneath the annoying pain to his enhanced hearing, he couldn't help but be impressed that she was following his instructions, not panicking.

Natasha's voice in his earpiece yanked his attention back to his work.

"All right," she was saying in Russian. "Now you've gotten in, you'll need to erase everything."

"By doing what?" he asked. Behind him, the irregular _rat-tat-tat_ as Pepper fired was almost comforting. As long as he heard it, she was alive.

Natasha spoke quickly, interrupted by occasional grunts or gunfire as she engaged another of their enemy. Bucky followed her instructions as best he could, and made a mental note to find a typing class. It was no good having enhanced speed if he didn't know where the right keys were.

"I'm out!"

Pepper's nervous announcement made him hit the wrong key in a sequence Natasha had given him. He swore under his breath, then called, "C'mere, I have a spare."

Even with his enhanced hearing, her footsteps were almost silent on the stone floor.

He reached behind him for the modified CZ 61 Skorpion machine pistol holstered between his shoulder blades, turned on the stool just enough to flick it to single-shot mode.

"Two spare clips, fully loaded," he told her. "Single-shot mode. Make each one count."

Bucky hated the grim resignation in Pepper's expression as she checked the weapon. He'd never thought he'd see her like this, ankle-deep in his world, and that his world was creeping past her knees tore at his heart.

Pepper turned away to return to her position by the door. A hostile filled the doorway, and Pepper fired once.

The man fell.

"I thought it took more than one shot to bring a man down," Pepper said.

"Not with that."

"Oh."

Another shot rang out. Bucky didn't wince as it sang by his head.

"You okay with this?" he asked.

"I have to be." Pepper fired again.

Bucky watched the second man fall, then forced himself to turn back to the keyboard and replay what Natasha had said the last few seconds. Her instructions registered, and he tapped in the appropriate commands.

"Hurry," he murmured to her in Russian.

#

Pepper stayed where she was, firing when a man came into view. One, two, three…

Then it fell quiet.

Pepper waited, but for long seconds, there was no sound, no movement in the hallway.

Had they given up?

She ran to the doorway, stopping before she reached the opening. She crept forward the final few inches to peer into the hall.

A bullet ricocheting off the wall was her reward.

Pepper jerked backward, stumbling over her own feet.

She swore and fired a shot down the hall.

There was no return fire, so she risked another peek around the corner.

A double handful of men had clustered at the far end of the hall, a solid wall of defense. A glance to her right told her the other end of the hallway was empty.

Pepper withdrew back into the room. Why had the men clustered together? Why weren't they advancing?

 _Think, Pepper. Think!_

She was good at thinking, she knew that. She just had no practice at thinking about battle strategy. Bucky would know, but she'd already interrupted him once, and she couldn't risk not destroying the data they'd collected, not just on her but also on all the prior Extremis victims.

Pepper shoved that concern aside. Her main concern now was why the enemy had fallen back. Were they waiting for Bucky and Pepper to emerge from the room like Butch and Sundance?

If so, they'd have a long wait. There was one window in this room, and it was on the ground floor. Not the best escape route, but certainly a viable one - especially if the alternative was being shredded by enemy fire.

Pepper breathed slowly in and out, trying to calm her racing pulse as well as her thoughts. There had to be a reason the men had congregated. She just had to figure it out.

She thought back over what she'd learned about the house layout, and in a flash the answer was obvious. All they needed was to go around the house, through a window or door, that would bring them inside on the other side of the room where she and Bucky were.

They could then coordinate a two- or even three-pronged pincer attack, approaching from both sides of the doorway and maybe even the window, and it would be a massacre.

There was no way around it, Pepper thought. They were going to die here.

If that were the case, she'd die defending her soulmate.

Pepper retreated back to Bucky, stood with her back against his, the small touch oddly centering, more comforting than she would have expected.

She could die content.


	15. Chapter 15

Bucky smiled when he felt the warmth of Pepper's skin against his, but it faded almost instantly.

"What's wrong, doll?"

"They're going to rush us," she told him.

Understanding came immediately, riding a wave of anger - at the Mandarin, Ten Rings, God Himself. He'd spent almost a hundred years without a soulmate, and now they were threatening to take her away before they even bonded?

Not if he could help it.

"We're about to have real company," he told Natasha.

"We're working as fast as we can," she reminded him. "What do you see at the cursor now?"

He told her. "I thought computers were fast. Shouldn't we be done by now?"

"If it were just this computer, yes, but it's not. We have to make sure we follow any trails if they transmitted the data elsewhere - the cloud for backup, other facilities, anywhere."

Bucky grunted an acknowledgment, and made a mental note to get on Stark, and anyone else he trusted, to create a program to do exactly what he was doing. It would save a lot of time and trouble. Only …

Only his work was going faster now. He seemed to anticipate her instructions more accurately, and was already entering commands before she told him what to do.

He didn't know why it was happening, but he was certainly going to appreciate it.

#

It was odd, Pepper thought, that suddenly the waiting didn't seem as nerve-wracking.

Instead, she'd settled into an almost meditative state, alert and aware, but not panicked as she watched the doorway for the slightest sign of movement, listened for the barest whisper of noise.

Maybe it was Bucky's solid presence behind her, the skin of their backs touching thanks to backless hospital gown and his flak jacket riding up on his body as he bent to work.

Whatever it was, she'd take it, and be glad for it. They might be going to die, but at the least she hoped to take a lot of the enemy with them.

The clicks of weapons being readied told her she'd have her chance in seconds.

#

Bucky was barely listening to Natasha as his fingers flew over the keyboard. He _knew_ what to do, and how to do it, and her clumsy explanations only slowed him down, and he couldn't afford to slow down because the enemy was here _right now_ and he couldn't let them take his soulmate from him.

"I've got the worm uploaded," he told Natasha.

Her reply was lost in a hail of gunfire from the hallway door, Pepper's single shots punctuated it like thunder. Steady and sure, Bucky noted, not panicked. Just like he would do.

 _Good girl_ , he thought.

Then the window exploded in a rain of glass shards.

He threw up his metal arm to cover his face and grabbed the gun beside him with his other hand.

Bucky fired a short burst, risked a glance over his shoulder.

Two men, one at each side of the doorway - and his soulmate at his back, facing them unprotected.

"Trade places," Bucky ordered.

"How?" Pepper asked.

"Turn to your left in three. Two. One."

And then he was cradling his rifle against his shoulder as he faced the doorway. Two targets. Two shots, each one clean through the skull.

More crowded the left side of the doorway, one man kneeling as he leaned into the opening, one standing half-covered behind him. Men on the right side mirrored the positions.

Four targets. Bucky lined up his shots.

Left high, right high -

Two bullets _pinged_ off his metal arm. A third slammed into his flak jacket. He _whuffed_ an exhale at the impact, would have stumbled backward except that his back was pressed against Pepper's.

Bucky returned fire, glad that his body had shielded Pepper. She'd told him the Extremis meant she healed faster than normal, but that didn't mean he wanted her to be hurt at all.

And then there was no more time for thought as the onslaught began in earnest.

#

Pepper felt Bucky sway against her, and for a heartbeat, she thought she felt the impact that had knocked him back, as well.

There was no time to think of that, only to react to the threat at the window. Fire, and again if the target didn't drop. Fire.

How many men were there?

She didn't know. She had to focus on the one in front of her right now.

 _Bang._ Pause. _Bang._ Pause. _Bang. Bang._ Her shots and Bucky's sounded in counterpoint, an odd staccato rhythm that jarred at her nerves in ways that she'd never expected.

The rhythm smoothed out, and she and Bucky were firing in tandem. No, it was more than that, Pepper thought. It was as though he were pulling the trigger for her, even as he fired his own.

She didn't know what it was, but the unity of motion, of intent, felt natural. Right. As though they were one and the same person.

That wasn't possible, was it?

A fist-sized black object flew through remains of the window.

Pepper stared at it, trying to comprehend.

 _Grenade_. It was Bucky's voice, and she felt him moving almost before the thought completed.

In the space between breaths, he whirled, caught her up in one arm, and lunged for cover. Pepper hit the floor, Bucky landing on top of her.

Two seconds later, the grenade exploded.

#

Hearing returned slowly, as rubble from the explosion shifted and settled over them. Bucky shifted his own body, covering as much of Pepper as he could.

He glanced down, found her staring up at him, shaken but alive and conscious.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She nodded, and he breathed out a relieved sigh. There was no time for more, because the Ten Rings would be coming in to get them.

"Where the hell are you, Natasha?" he demanded.

Only static answered.

Had she been compromised? Killed? He couldn't think about that now.

Now, he was on his own. No one else could help him save Pepper.

"Except me," she said.

"What?"

"You're not on your own. I'll help you save me."

Had he said that out loud? Bucky frowned, reviewed the last few moments. No, he was sure he hadn't said anything aloud. So how had Pepper -?

He grinned.

Pepper's eyebrows shot up. "This is amusing?"

"Not humor, doll. Joy." He bent down for a quick kiss, pulled back to see her even more disbelieving expression. He ignored it. "Got your gun, still?"

Pepper looked like she wanted to argue, but the reality of the situation meant that she said only, "Surprisingly, yes."

"I'm gonna shift the rubble off of us. Think you can take out whoever's on the other side?"

Her mouth settled into a thin line. "I can certainly try."

"There is no _try_." Natasha's voice sounded staticy, broken, as it came through the comm.

Bucky grinned. "Where are you?"

"Ready to take advantage of the distraction when you break free," Natasha answered.

Bucky started to repeat her words for Pepper, but Pepper smiled. "I heard."

Of course she did. Bucky braced his hands more solidly on the floor to either side of Pepper's head. "In three. Two. One."

He flexed, shrugged, and stood, rubble falling away from him. Then Pepper was sitting up, strafing the room with her machine pistol.

Bucky scooped up the nearest weapon and surveyed the room, ready to fight for his soulmate's life.

As it turned out, there was no need. Their attackers were all down - most dead, he thought, and a few twitching as if in seizure.

Natasha stepped into the doorway. "Remind me to thank Stark for the improvements in the stingers."

Bucky slung his confiscated rifle over his shoulder. "Have I told you you're my second favorite redhead?"

"No, but you're my second favorite super-soldier, so it works out."

Bucky stepped around in front of Pepper, offered her a hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet and into his arms.

Or started to. She leaned back. "I hope I'm your favorite redhead."

"My favorite everything."

The smile Pepper gave him could thaw even the Winter Soldier's heart. The kiss she gave him could have thawed a Siberian winter.

It was interrupted by Natasha's voice. "I'm a fan of happy reunions, but maybe you'd rather have yours in private?"

Pepper broke the kiss, looked up at Bucky. "We can't leave yet."

"Why not?"

"The Mandarin is here. That's why they took me - they needed the Extremis to save his life."

Almost before she'd finished speaking, Bucky was moving toward the door.

"Stay with her," he told Natasha.

He got no argument from either of them. Good. The asset could do his work unimpeded.


	16. Chapter 16

Pepper helped Natasha secure those of her captors who were still alive, collecting weapons while Natasha applied zip-ties liberally and then called the Bulgarian authorities.

"They won't believe three people did all this," Pepper said.

"Four," Natasha corrected. "And if they don't that's their own ignorance. It can only work to our advantage."

"I suppose." Pepper found a chair that miraculously had only a handful of bullet holes in its back, righted it, and sat down, Bucky's Skorpion cradled in her lap.

Natasha came to stand in front of her, her gaze concerned and assessing at the same time. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," Pepper said. "Being kidnapped is easier the second time around, but I really don't want it to become a habit."

"Were you raped?"

"No. They only wanted my blood, not my body."

Natasha nodded, satisfied. Then, "And the rest? The fighting, the killing?"

"That hasn't sunk in yet," Pepper admitted.

"It's little comfort, but know that you had no other choice. You say they only wanted your blood, but when they got what they needed, they would have killed you. Or worse."

"I know." And that knowledge born from this experience had also helped her reach one other conclusion. "I'm not going to be an Avenger."

Surprise flickered across Natasha's expression, quickly controlled. "Why would you want to be?"

"Because I can, thanks to the Extremis."

"That's not a good reason."

"Isn't it? You've heard the saying that with great power comes great responsibility. Aren't I obliged to do something?"

"Are you saying you didn't do anything before the Extremis? That Stark Industries and the various charitable foundations are worthless?"

"No, of course not," Pepper said quickly. "I know they're not worthless. They've helped a lot of people. Just not like you do."

"You want to be a better partner for him."

"Well… yes. However un-feminist or sexist that may be."

"He doesn't need that kind of partner," Natasha said. "He has Steve, and me, and the other Avengers for that. He needs another kind of partner."

"I don't know what that might be."

Natasha smiled. "People have been figuring that out for thousands of years. You will, too."

Pepper laughed quietly. "I suppose so."

Minutes later, Bucky returned. "He's not here."

"Don't sound so disappointed," Natasha said at the same time Pepper said, "We'll find him eventually."

"Woulda been nice to end this."

 _This_ was whatever threat to her might still exist, Pepper knew. She rose from her chair and crossed the room to him, offered his Skorpion. He took it automatically, returned it to its holster between his shoulder blades.

"We will end it," Pepper told him. "Maybe not today, but we will. I know that, because I know you, and Natasha, and the rest of the Avengers."

Bucky nodded, but he didn't look convinced, so she pressed on.

"This is a good start," she said. "And it's enough for now. Let's go home."

#

Bucky had barely brought the quinjet to a complete stop at Avengers Tower before Tony and the other Avengers were approaching - along, he noted, with a medical team.

He killed the engines, and reached out a hand to keep Natasha from leaving the cockpit.

"What?" she asked.

"We saying or doing anything about Cardona?"

Natasha considered the question. "That's Pepper's decision."

"We'll back whatever she says."

It wasn't really a question, but Natasha nodded an acknowledgment anyway.

"It was good," Bucky said, "working with you."

She quirked a bit of a smile. "And you."

"Best partner I've had in a while," he continued. "And I'm gonna presume on that for a minute."

Natasha stiffened, but didn't bolt. Bucky took that as a sign that she'd listen, even if she wasn't certain what was coming next.

"My sister was born with her soulmark," he said. "Met the guy in high school under less than pleasant circumstances."

Natasha raised one eyebrow, but was otherwise silent.

"Got a little drunk at the homecoming dance," Bucky clarified. "They exchanged words, and he got a little … presumptuous."

"You sound like Steve."

"Yeah, well, can't help it sometimes. Point is, I hadda teach him a lesson, warn him away from her. Bein' soulmates doesn't excuse - _that_."

"No," Natasha agreed. "It doesn't."

"I got a letter from her, back in '43. She'd run into him again, and they were getting married."

"Did they live happily ever after?"

Bucky shrugged his metal shoulder, ignoring the sarcasm in her tone. "I haven't checked. Point is, no matter how bad a start you and your soulmate got off to, there've been others just as bad, or worse, that have turned into something special."

"So you're saying I should get in touch with him."

"I wouldn't tell you what to do. But maybe you should think about why you're staying away."

He paused, reached out his human hand to cup her cheek. It was an intimacy he wouldn't normally have dared, but today, it felt less dangerous. "Whatever you decide, I'll back your play. Even break his legs if you want me to."

Natasha looked startled, however briefly, before one side of her mouth lifted in a grin. "Well, the history books do say you were a charmer."

Then she was gone, and Bucky turned back to finishing the post-flight check. Every instinct he had screamed at him to join his soulmate, to affirm their bond in the most primal, physical manner, but that same bond told him that she was on her way to the medical center to be checked out by the staff.

Pepper knew she was all right, and Bucky knew she was all right, but apparently some of Steve's mother hen instincts had rubbed off on Tony, and the billionaire was insisting that she get checked out, even offering to bring the best doctors in from nearby hospitals. It would be a while before Pepper would be free of the doctors' clutches.

Or Tony's.

Bucky supposed Tony would be having a talk with him soon.

Oddly, the thought didn't bother him. Before the war, back when he'd been just Bucky Barnes, even a hint of that kind of talk would have sent him running far away from whatever dame had inspired it.

Now, though - now he was more than just Bucky Barnes. The man that he was now welcomed that talk and all that it implied about his relationship with his girl. His best girl. His only girl.

The girl who was getting checked out in medical. He'd be waiting for her when she was done.

#

"For the love of God, Tony, I'm fine." It wasn't the first time Pepper had told him that since he'd hustled her off the quinjet without so much as a hello/goodbye to her soulmate - her _soulmate_ , of all people - but it was the first time she'd let _that_ tone into her voice.

Tony obviously remembered that tone, because his mouth snapped shut. But only for a moment.

"Okay, you're fine. But what about Barnes? Is _he_ fine?"

"Oh, very." That wasn't the question Tony had been asking, though, and Pepper cleared her throat before answering again. "Yes, Tony, he is. He's not just Bucky Barnes, or James Buchanan Barnes, or the asset, or even the Winter Soldier. He's none of them and all of them, and he's my soulmate and he saved my life."

Tony sputtered to a stop, looking momentarily nonplussed. But, Tony being Tony, he recovered quickly. "Well, sure, anyone would. Any of the Avengers, and he's an Avenger. But -"

"He's my soulmate, Tony," Pepper repeated. "I know what he's like. I _feel_ what he's like."

"I did not need to know that."

"I wasn't talking about _that_ ," Pepper said. "There was a moment, during the fight. It was almost as if I was thinking his thoughts, feeling his feelings, knowing his knowledge. If I'd ever had any doubts about him - which I didn't, because I trust Bruce - they were put to rest right then."

Tony studied her for a long moment. Then, apparently satisfied at whatever he saw, he nodded once. "You know I'll have to give him the shovel talk."

"He's a super-soldier."

"I'm Iron Man."

Pepper smiled at that, and stepped forward to kiss his cheek. "Don't ever change."

Then she left the medical center behind, heading to her own quarters, still in the hospital gown she'd worn while she was a prisoner of Ten Rings. After they'd won that fight, Natasha had procured a doctor's lab coat from somewhere, and now Pepper wrapped it around herself, more for warmth than modesty in the Tower's climate-controlled air.

"Home, Ms. Potts?" JARVIS asked when she stepped into the elevator.

"Sergeant Barnes' quarters, please."

"As you wish. But he is not there."

"No?" Disappointment surged through Pepper. She'd been looking forward to exploring the moment she'd felt in the heat of battle.

"Following your instruction, I allowed him access to your apartment. He went in twenty-six minutes ago and has not emerged."

"Home, then, thank you."

Bucky met her at the door with a drink in his metal hand. "Figure you need this."

Pepper smiled. "I probably do. But I need this more."

She stepped forward, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling him down into a kiss. She felt his metal arm wrap around her waist, and his human hand came up to caress her cheek.

Pepper gave herself over to the kiss, to her soulmate, to _them_ until she had no choice but to breathe, and even then she only allowed the barest space between them. No kiss had ever felt as good, as right, as this one had, not even the earlier ones she'd shared with Bucky. Maybe that was thanks to the release of tension now that she was home.

"No," Bucky said. "It's because we bonded back there."

"Did I say that out loud?"

Bucky chuckled. "No. Hold this."

She accepted the glass he offered her, puzzled, then laughed when he scooped her up into his arms. He crossed the few steps to her sofa and sat, settling her across his lap with his arms wrapped around her.

"But how could we have bonded?" Pepper asked. "We haven't had sex yet."

"This century's obsessed with sex," Bucky observed. "Bonding requires intense emotion. It doesn't get more intense than fighting for your life, and our words touched when we were back to back. Didn't you feel it?"

Pepper took a sip of the drink he'd given her and thought about that. "There was a point when I was shooting better than I can. I remember thinking that must be how you would feel."

"And your knowledge of computers helped me anticipate Natasha's instructions to destroy whatever data they collected."

Pepper nodded slowly. "Does that mean we're not going to have sex?"

"We were never going to have sex," Bucky said.

"What?" Pepper stared at him. "After that comment about how I taste -"

A cool metal fingertip touched her lips, and she subsided. "We were never going to _have sex_ , doll. We're going to _make love_."

"Oh." Pepper smiled slowly. "Now?"

"Now." And he kissed her again.

= = = = = = NOTE:

Thank you all for coming along on this ride for me! I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

For those of you who've asked, Natasha's story, "Strange Bondfellows," will be posted next week. Steve's story is in the works, working title "Of Soulmates and Super-Soldiers," and I'll post it as soon as it's completed.


End file.
